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Let’s exercise our freedom!

What will you discover by telling your story?

I tossed my little bunny to the man in the third row. He reached out and caught her with one hand and, while caressing her, whispered in her ear. With a nonthreatening listener in hand, he had something to say.

We all have a story to tell, a story to live.

We write the story while growing up and observing how life plays out and how we would like for life to play out. Many of the scenes center on relationships. Ultimately, we want to feel known and loved; we want to love. We are designed to love.

Everybody writes a different story, though, paints a different picture of what love looks like. It is important to look at your own story — and share it. And, it is important to listen to your partner’s.

Storytelling is an art…and in order to keep it alive, we have to practice it. Can you imagine what your life would be like without stories? We cannot afford to leave the storytelling to somebody else.

Telling our own story puts us face-to-face with our fears and dreams and the characters that play a role in them. It gives us an opportunity to revise immature thinking and to make sure the story is healthy and loving.… More

Infatuation may be blind, but Perfect Love is 20-20!

From a reader:

“I think he loves me — he can’t keep his hands off me. The problem is: I’m not sure he knows me. We jumped into an all-consuming intimate relationship…and now that I want more, I’m not sure it’s there. He answers all of my questions in a please-don’t-ask-me-another-one tone.”

There’s nothing quite like infatuation — as long as neither partner wants more.

Sex parades as intimacy. And infatuation parades as love, but only until somebody opens their eyes!

The “perfect love” we seek is formed by Passion and Intimacy and Commitment. It’s easy to get confused under the influence, though.

PASSION is erotic attraction (and a potential blinder). INTIMACY is a psychological knowledge of each other, and how attracted you are based on what you know. And COMMITMENT is the decision that you love each other and want to maintain that love.

According to Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Human Development at Cornell University, there are eight types of love formed by different levels of the three ingredients:

Perfect: high passion, high intimacy and high commitment.
Shallow: high passion and high commitment, with low intimacy.
Companionate: high intimacy and high commitment, with low passion.
Romantic: high intimacy and high passion, with low commitment.… More

Learn, as well as complement …

I love Sam’s decisiveness; but I try to learn from it, rather than use it as a crutch.

Often two people in a a relationship complement each other, by bringing different strengths and traits into play. And if they work as a team, they both win!

We don’t have to stop there, though. When we learn from each other, we can become stronger and more balanced individually, as well.… More

If you are an angel, you believe in angels …

We drove to Cedar Key over the weekend and walked from town out to the airport. It was a lovely 3 miles, but I wasn’t wearing walking shoes. So I found a smooth rock to sit on at the edge of the water, while Sam checked out the runway.

I was hoping the break would give me a fresh start in my sandals; but I was too close to blisters. Sam offered to carry me! A golf cart passed us, but was gone almost before we could decide to ask for a ride.

Ah, the cart stopped at the corner, though. And then the driver got out of the cart and wiped off the back seat. “He’s wiping off the seat for you,” Sam said. We looked at each other with bright, hopeful eyes! And the man got back in the driver’s seat, did a U turn, and came back for us! … More

“Know Thyself”

If the only way to be happy is to be true to yourself, what we really want to talk about is getting to know the self! And when we say it that way, we recognize the enormity of the task.

“The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge,” said the Greek philosopher Plato. “Know thyself,” is accepted as the corner stone on which the temples of philosophy were erected; and without the corner stone, all other knowing crumbles. It is the quest that has traveled with man from the launching of a soul until the present day. It has, from the beginning, transcended continent, race, culture, and tradition. But if the sages of every age have sought the knowing, only for the next generation to seek it again, how can we have the audacity to take on the task. How can we not?

The knowing is not knowledge that can be passed on. The knowing is uncovered only in the process of seeking it. No man has rights to it; yet all men have the right to pursue it. And so, we must seek it.… More