36
Just put up with it...
It is much easier to put up with some things a person does when you love her or him. But it's very hard when you don't feel love. Or you don't love him anymore. When there is no peace, no understanding, no strength to forgive.
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Humility with the actions of those you love multiplies love and gives a joint perspective. Love gives strength. You cannot make them up or call them out by order. They are already there.
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Accepting the actions of those you don't love gives you personal freedom and wisdom. It also gives you back your energy, your attention and makes you free. However, it takes a lot more mental effort.
37
Live or plan?
Many people's lives consist of making plans for how they will do something, or of making plans about how they will make plans. For example, take up some sports, write a book, build a house, go on a trip somewhere, or just sit down and sort things out.
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And all these plans are never meant to come true, because there is always too little time, money, or effort. If there're some, it would be obvious that there are more obstacles on the inside than on the outside, even if there is a good chance and an opportunity. And it's not about time at all, since there is always enough time for what you really want.
38
To feel is to be alive
Feelings arise in people, even if they are irrational and do not lead to the desired goal, even if they don't seem to make any sense. Feelings are not something that should serve a purpose. It is something that simply comes into being. It arises and it exists. And there's nothing you can do about it. You have to reckon with them.
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Sometimes you don't want to feel sad or ashamed. But these feelings, as well as any others, come no matter what you want. Sometimes you suddenly feel so hurt that you ask your business partner to wait and run to the bathroom to cry when no one is looking. And you can't explain to yourself what happened. You just feel so vulnerable and can't show it.
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Feelings make us vulnerable and open to the world in all its unpredictability. They make it possible to be with someone, to change, to find ourselves in unexpected places, to suffer and to rejoice. To be alive.
39
When it's hard to feel good
In the life of a person who has experienced a lot of trauma, pain and disappointment, and then found healing after long time working on him/herself, there comes an interesting time...
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There comes a very strange and unnerving day when everything is well. It’s not an illusion, a catch or the lull before the storm, but an actually true "well".You just feel happy to live your life. It would seem that all of life's struggles took place to let this moment happen. You feel whole for the first time, and it's quite a strange feeling.
40
ABOUT CRITICISM AND HUMILIATION
It happens that you make someone literally crushed or humiliated by your words and behavior. She or he takes a harmless "it's hard for me to be around you" or "when I see you, I get anxious" as the harshest criticism or a violent attack. And then you wonder: "What did I say?" You've suddenly become a horrible monster to the other and no excuses can help.
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Or sometimes someone tells you that you have humiliated her or him, while you are sure that you would never do such a thing. You are again left wondering. How could this happen?
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The truth is that your words hurt the most when they coincide with what the person's "inner critic" tells him/her.
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People are crushed not by someone else's words, but by their feelings of inferiority.
