As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun.
Alan CohenRead
When you protect yourself from pain, be sure you do not protect yourself from love.
Interpretation
Avoiding pain may lead to missing out on love.
This quote emphasizes the balance between self-protection and vulnerability. While it is natural to want to shield oneself from emotional pain, doing so can also prevent the experience of deep love and connection, which is essential for a fulfilling life. It suggests that one must be willing to face potential pain in order to fully embrace the beauty of loving relationships.
In practice
During a relationship seminar, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of openness.
As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun.
Communication is an offering. When you tell someone your truth, you must release your expectation of what the other person should do with it. They may thank you profusely, love you forever, argue with you, or ignore you. It doesn't matter. Of course we hope the gift will be received with appreciation and thanks. But if it isn't we must not dictate. We've done our part, and we must trust the universe to do the rest.
When you learn to say yes to yourself, you will be able to say no to others, with love.
We attain freedom as we let go of whatever does not reflect our magnificence. A bird cannot fly high or far with a stone tied to its back. But release the impediment, and we are free to soar to unprecedented heights.
You can be helping many people, but if you are not helping yourself, you have missed the one person you were born to heal.
Enlightenment does not ask you to be perfect; it simply asks you to find perfection right where you stand.
We all, sometimes, leave each other there under the skies, and we never understand why.
After all these years, I could say thank you to a woman who had a powerful impact on my early life.
We're born alone. We do need each other. It's lonely to really effectively live your life, and anyone you can get help from or give help to; that's part of your obligation.
God calls all of his children to the table. We can disagree and even say a lot of hateful things, but what we can't do in good conscience is leave the table. Or demand that someone else not be at the table.
Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world
And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.
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