“Something changes the moment you decide you’ve found a person you are ready to reveal parts of your soul to. Something stands out and makes the moment unique. A profound multidimensional clarity resembling a piece of carefully gathered stardust; As if you are whispering “finally” and your eyes fill with light and spontaneity. As if you do not care whether your heart will melt or crumble in the process because your brief courage undoes your tremendous fear of disbelief. You live for these moments; For you are, maybe for one second or more, sweetly forced to surrender yourself to unconditional intimacy. A moment of psychological reward smashing all self-imposed disciplines founded on terror. This is all you need.” —
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
"On some basic yet very deep level all of us feel fundamentally alone, and until we face this directly, we will fear it.
Most of us will do almost anything to avoid this fear.
Many, when faced with the fear of aloneness, get extra busy,
or try to find some other escape.
Ultimately, however, the willingness to truly feel the fear of aloneness and loss is the only way to transcend it.
It’s also the only way to develop intimacy with others, because genuine intimacy can’t be based on neediness or on the fear of being alone.
When we need people we can’t truly love them, because we see them and relate to them through the small mind’s filter of neediness."
Ezra Bayda (from an article named "what matters most")
Most of us will do almost anything to avoid this fear.
Many, when faced with the fear of aloneness, get extra busy,
or try to find some other escape.
Ultimately, however, the willingness to truly feel the fear of aloneness and loss is the only way to transcend it.
It’s also the only way to develop intimacy with others, because genuine intimacy can’t be based on neediness or on the fear of being alone.
When we need people we can’t truly love them, because we see them and relate to them through the small mind’s filter of neediness."
Ezra Bayda (from an article named "what matters most")
"Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break. But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your dear of other people and what's outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home."
Pema Chodron
Pema Chodron
"Making yourself more available, more gentle and open to others. The warrior who has accomplished true renunciation is completely naked and raw. He has no desire to manipulate situations. He is able to be, quite fearlessly, what he is. The result of [this] letting go it that [he] discovers a bank of self-existing energy that is always available. It is the energy of basic goodness."
Chogyam Trungpa
