A Candle in Your Heart

AA wrote: Joyeux Noël et une très belle année 2019 à toi Sabina. 

Un grand merci pour tes messages du lundi. 

BB wrote: En riktigt god jul till dig också. Och stort tack för att du håller mig kvar i kontakt med mig själv med dina kloka brev. Kramar och kärlek till dig! 

A Candle in Your Heart

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?

Rumi

This is the season of love and candlelight. What could be a better holiday message than Rumi’s?

Never mind the stress, the difficult people you celebrate with because that’s tradition. Light the candle in your heart, feel its warmth, and spread it out.

   Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all!

                                       See you again in January 2019 :-)

What’s in a Name?

I wish more of you would share their "results"! :-)

AA said: Sympa comme petit jeu!

V - voyageuse

A - admirative

L - loyale

É - énergique

R - rêveuse

I - idéaliste

E - enthousiaste

What’s in a Name?

B – for Buddhist

R – for Roman Catholic

A – for Anglican

H – for Hindu

M – for Muslim

                Ajahn Brahm

This is a little game to do during the stressful time before Christmas: write your first name vertically, as above, and find fitting adjectives to all the letters. Especially during winter it is good to stop and take some time for introspection...

I’ve already made it myself and actually it is less easy than it seems at the first glance ;-)

S – for Spiritual

A – for Affectionate

B – for Benevolent

I – for Imaginative

N – for Nature-lover

A – for Accepting

Peace & Silence

Peace & Silence

Grant yourself a moment of peace,and you will understandhow foolishly you have scurried about.Learn to be silent,and you will notice thatyou have talked too much.

                  Chinese Proverb

During the busy weeks before Christmas, when our to-do lists are even longer than during the rest of the year, it’s good to make little breaks of Peace & Silence.

For example, every time a telephone rings: stop, and feel a moment of peace. You may imagine a peaceful place, person or situation. Fall silent, relax your face, neck and throat, and perhaps even close your eyes.

Take a deep breath, notice how this pause refreshes you, and pick up your long list again.

The Ultimate Mobile Device

AA said: Oh Sabina, das ist Gold wert! Danke dafür, ich mache das!

The Ultimate Mobile Device

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively. 

                                    Sharon Salzberg

What a brilliant alternative to the use of the all-invasive cell phone! Instead of turning to technology when you’re restless you do little micro meditations. If sitting on a bus or a train, standing in line, waiting for your friend to show up – a 1 to 3 minute meditation can be done anytime, anywhere.

I regret to admit that despite my intentions to use the mobile phone “only when necessary” (sending messages, making phone calls etc.) I catch myself being busy with it far too often. This week’s challenge is to switch over to the Ultimate Mobile Device! Instead of grabbing the cell phone when there’s a gap in your day, you relax, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. No unhealthy radiation, no stress factors, just a relaxed Here and Now J

Breath is Life

AA said:Nun sause ich ins Büro. Nicht ohne deine Montagmorgenmail gelesen zu haben (wie jede Woche). Und ich achte immer auf tiefes, gutes Atmen!

Breath is Life 

Breath is no longer a routine inhalation of air but a quivering intake of life.

    Stephen Bachelor: Buddhism Without Beliefs

How “well” we breathe is crucial for our quality of life. In situations of stress or anguish our breath gets shallow. Some people’s breath never reaches their diaphragm. That has a significant impact on their health: the body remains in a cyclical state of stress, where stress causes shallow breathing and shallow breathing causes stress. Such chronic stress results in lower amounts of a type of white blood cell that helps to defend the body from invading organisms, and lowers the amounts of proteins that signal other immune cells. The body is then susceptible to contracting acute illnesses, aggravating pre-existing medical conditions, and prolonging healing times.

Diaphragmatic breathing, or “belly breathing,” can be trained. Here you can find some simple instructions. I really enjoy practicing relaxed breathing all the way down in my abdomen. In such moments breathing really feels like Bachelor puts it: as a quivering intake of life. It is nothing less than a miracle how we keep alive by taking in and letting out the air around us...

Sadness and Happiness

AA said: Bonjour! Very true 💕

Sadness and Happiness

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

                                                                 C. G. Jung

During our lives many things happen that make us sad, and with the years we learn to deal with loss, deception, and grief. There are also days when we wake up sad without knowing why.

We don’t want to be sad, so we try different strategies to flee from sadness. Constant searching for entertainment, eating or drinking too much - you name it. Very often these strategies make us feel even more miserable. Instead, we should welcome sadness when it arrives. 

Take the time to sit with that uneasiness and feel it all the way, in your whole body and mind. Let sadness wake you up to the complexity and fullness of life. When you touch your own sadness and pain, you naturally feel empathy for the sadness and pain of others. Fully felt sadness makes us grow.

And as sure as after rain there will be sunshine, after sad days there will be happy days. 

Relationship – The Undertaking

AA wrote: So timely!  We were trying to write a letter together regarding an insurance claim and we were butting heads!  Good reminder to listen:)

BB wrote: I think it's perfect! Thank you!!

Relationship – The Undertaking

Love is an emotion, but a relationship is an undertaking. The degree to which we feel loved in our relationships has to do precisely with how we behave, what we say, offer, recognize and respond to in another human being.

That’s because, although we don’t like to believe it, at the level of an interpersonal relationship love is contingent upon behaviour. Love, the emotion, just doesn’t stick around forever in the face of inattention or abuse on the part of the people involved.

Therefore, if you want your mate to feel the love you have in your heart, make it your business to listen, to discover what, at the level of her soul, she needs to hear, to see, to be shown and to receive; what, at the depth of his soul, he needs to be told, how he needs to touched, encouraged, cherished, and believed in.

Daphne Rose Kingma: A Garland of Love

No comments needed - I think this says it all.

A Leap in the Dark

AA said: Danke für Deine so schönen Gedanken.

BB said:Yes and Amen!  And look up, not always seeing the same view! Inspiring 

CC said: Detta talade verkligen direkt till mig i dag. Satt just och funderade över vad jag skulle hitta på för extra, när allt kändes så förutsägbart. Lite av tristess som man skulle kunna ”bota” med precis som du skrev, att göra en liten ändring i alla fall. Funderade också över varför det, i alla fall för mig, periodvis fungerar bra att allt bara flyter på och ibland känns stressande att det är så.

A Leap in the Dark

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

                        Agnes de Mille

Most of us want to live a “safe” life. We want the same people to remain by our side, we want things to stay the way they have always been. If we have been okay at our workplace the last thirteen years, let’s keep on working there. For breakfast, we like to have the same cheese and tomato sandwich with a cup of coffee, year after year. No unforeseen changes, please!

Very often, however, life does not work that way. Suddenly there’s a crack: our loved one leaves us, we get a surprising job offer, or the family doctor bans our morning coffee. Life equals change, and we might as well get used to it. Change equals surprises and that’s the stunning thing about life. Isn’t it amazing that you have no clue about what’s up next? That there’s always something unforeseen coming up? I think so!

Life’s number one motto is Embracing Changes. Try to change one of your habits this week. Take a different route to your job. Have porridge for breakfast. Read a book you wouldn’t spontaneously pick up. Join a club for kite surfing. Expect the unexpected; take a leap in the dark! ;-) 

Parole, parole, parole...

AA said: Kan inte vara sannare.

Parole, parole, parole…

Most of conflicts and tensions are due to language. Don’t pay so much attention to the words. In love’s country, language doesn’t have its place. Love is mute.

                                             Shams of Tabriz

There is so much talking going on all the time. Words, words, words! They can be sources of you but, alas, very often they are the root of misunderstandings, conflicts and tensions.

We are used to blurting out whatever crosses our mind without further reflection. Often we regret what we said; it might have been unkind or hurtful, we might have tread on someone’s toes.

I try to hold my tongue, sticking to Buddha’s advice: “before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?”

The Love of Our Lost Ones

AA said: Underbara tankar, tack!
BB said: J'adore ✨
CC said: That is one of my favorite quotes, too. Since my mom passed, I often feel her presence at sunrise.

The Love of Our Lost Ones

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

Eskimo Proverb

Most of us have lost somebody near and dear. Whether suddenly and unexpectedly, after a longer illness or because of old age, the beloved person passed away. We miss him or her so much…

You might have rituals to remember the ones that passed away, or simply remember them in your everyday lives when you hear a certain tune, touch a certain object or see something that reminds you of them. 

One beautiful way of being in touch with our dead friends is looking at the stars. I love the thought that the stars are openings in heaven through which the love of our lost ones shines down on us! 

When I stand on my balcony at night it fills me with such joy to think that the near and dear ones that left me shine like happy lights in the universe.

On Kindness

AA said: so schön gesagt liebe Sabina!  Danke!

BB said: 💞💞💞💞💞🌹

On Kindness

Kindness is Love made visible.

@rakfoundation

Many things make the world a better place. As a base they all have a positive approach to other living beings. Love, helpfulness, care, concern… And at the center of them all, there is Kindness. 

Kindness warms hearts, our own and others. Kindness makes all the difference.

Let kindness rule your life.

(For inspiration, check out the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation )   

Your Future

AA wrote: Awesome! Love that book!

Your Future

Future cannot be predicted. It can only be created.

  From the Bhagavad Gita

What do you want your future to look like? Do you want there to be more love, more time for creativity, less stress or worries?

We can steer our future into a desired direction through the way we think and act today. What we sow, we reap… If we want there to be more kindness in the world, we can decide to actively spread more of it. (For ideas and inspiration check out https://www.randomactsofkindness.org !)  If we want to have less stress we can practice slowing down.

Of course, things happen that are out of our control. We fall ill, a loved one passes away, we lose our jobs… but if we decide to live our days in happiness and practice relaxing and smiling during any circumstances (taking the Dalai Lama as a role model), we create a better future, for ourself and others. You are what you put into the world - and the world changes with you.

Four Times a Day

Four Times a Day

Four times a day, slow down your steps and your gestures.  Return to your centre and pay attention to your breath. Enjoy that special moment. 

                                                 Anonymous

I have chosen my Four Times: 

1. Before I take the first bite of my breakfast.

2. When I am standing on my doorstep, ready to leave the house.

3. At noon. Wherever I am, whatever I do.

4. Before brushing my teeth at night.

Which will be yours…?

Cradle for Our Souls

Cradle for Our Souls

There is no greater gift you can give to another human being than your response: to his tears, to his words, to his touch; to her hopes, to her dreams, to her prayers. 

Response is joining; response is heartfelt participation. Response, of whatever kind – with your words, with your tears, with your heart, with your arms – is a way of standing inside the pain and the joy and the hope and the fear and the imagined isolation of another person’s experience.

“I’m so sorry to hear that”; “That sounds awful”; “How wonderful, I’m so happy for you”; “You must be scared”; “I bet you’re excited”; “I can’t imagine how that must feel.”

Respond. Respond with your heart. Respond as much as you can. Respond no matter how inadequate you feel. Response is the cradle in which, very gently, we rock one another’s vulnerable souls. 

                                 Daphne Rose Kingma: A Garland of Love

Nothing to subtract, nothing to add :-)