Nothing in the world will ever make you feel validated until you validate yourself.

 

Jeffrey Pang from Berkeley, CA, USA - Inspiration Lake

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I Went A Decade Without Dating. Here's What Happened

 

by Kerissa KuisDecember 19, 2015 5:22 AM Save  
 

Ten years ago, my life was a complete mess.

I was 25 years old, my grandmother was dying, and my Adderall use was quickly becoming an addiction. I was in a world of debt, and losing friends fast. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, the man I loved started cheating on me and my relationship ended in violence.

Up until that point, I'd never had good experiences with dating. My previous relationships had created a yearning for validation that ruled me mentally, physically, and emotionally. They caused me to feel weak, inadequate, and worthless in every aspect of life.

I would constantly attract men who did not appreciate my value because I did not appreciate my own self-worth at the time.

I knew I needed to learn to love myself the way that I wanted someone else to love me. But I didn't know how.

  

One night when things were at their worst, I was walking toward my condo and saw a book sitting on a bench. I could feel a distinct energy drawing me toward the text, and I stood frozen when I saw the words "fourth deadly sin" on its cover. When I opened the book, I saw that it was talking about lust. I'm a spiritual person, and I took the text as a sign that I needed to stop putting my relationships before God and myself.

I decided to let go of relationships altogether, and I made a commitment never to date again. I told myself that fulfilling my purpose was far more important than anything I could gain from a romantic partnership. Intimacy was something I thought I would never have again, and I was totally okay with that.

I avoided situations in which I could be hit on — I stopped going out and barely communicated with members of the opposite sex unless they were married or in a serious relationship. I built a wall around myself that was so high that I had no idea how anyone could ever break it down. Intimacy simply wasn’t an option, so my entire life became about working to create a business. I began developing courses for life coaches and eventually started traveling near and far to teach at wellness retreats.

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Be The Change : Maysoon Zayid: I got 99 problems... palsy is just one

TED

Published on Jan 3, 2014

"I have cerebral palsy. I shake all the time," Maysoon Zayid announces at the beginning of this exhilarating, hilarious talk. (Really, it's hilarious.) "I'm like Shakira meets Muhammad Ali." With grace and wit, the Arab-American comedian takes us on a whistle-stop tour of her adventures as an actress, stand-up comic, philanthropist and advocate for the disabled.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate
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Faced With Cancer, This 8-Year-Old Chef Started His Own Gourmet Cooking Show

 

The Huffington Post  | by  Gabriela Kruschewsky

Posted: 02/27/2014 4:27 pm EST Updated: 02/28/2014 8:59 am EST

Filet mignon accompanied by sides of asparagus and a yucca purée. Golden fish fillets in a lemon butter reduction. And for dessert? A mouth-watering fruit salad a la créme de passion fruit.
That's what's cooking in 8-year-old Arthur Gonzaga's kitchen -- a young chef from Minas Gerais, Brazil who has recently taken to the Internet to share his latest culinary adventures with the masses.

Arthur, who was diagnosed with leukemia in August of 2013, spent the latter half of that year in and out of the hospital due to his treatment and recovery process. During this time, in which Arthur was forced to spend Christmas Eve in the emergency room of São Paulo's A.C. Camargo Cancer Center, the young boy's father, Renato Gonzaga, and stepmother, Priscila Inserra, entertained the idea of creating something beautiful and positive for their son to focus on.
The result was Arthur's very own cooking show. He posted short segments to YouTube where Arthur both cooked and shared his delicious recipes. The family fittingly titled the series "Arthur Gourmand."

After celebrating the new year at home, Arthur began cooking in the kitchen of a close family friend who opened up her house to the young chef and currently acts as the project's art producer, Inserra told The Huffington Post. Gonzaga has made many cameos in the videos, acting as his son's sous chef and passing Arthur whatever ingredients he needs, while actively showing support for his incredible passion and talent.

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Be The Change : 'Love Ninja': Mom shares one teacher's amazing strategy to combat bullying, loneliness

Glennon Doyle Melton TODAY contributor

Jan. 31, 2014 at 6:57 PM ET

This post was first published on Glennon Doyle Melton's blog, Momastery, on Jan. 30. In less than a day it was shared more than 1 million times. We wanted to share it with you.

A few weeks ago, I went into Chase’s class for tutoring.
I’d emailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math – but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She emailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth grade classroom staring at rows of shapes that Chase’s teacher kept referring to as “numbers.”

Little Moon Photography

Author Glennon Doyle Melton with her family; her conversation with her son's teacher sparked this post.

I stood a little shakily at the chalkboard while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, perched on her desk, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but l could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common.
Afterwards, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are the least important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community – and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are Kind and Brave above all.
And then she told me this.
Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chase’s teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down — right away — who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.


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• 'Ingenious' System Helps Teacher Spot Kids in Trouble

Eight Signs You may be Experiencing a Spiritual Awakening

Fractal Enlightenment 

Gary Z McGee January 16, 2014

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” ~ Miles Kington
1. You’re more in touch with your spiritual foundations through transformative meditation:
You realize, as Jung noted, that “the experience of the Self is always a defeat for the Ego.” And through the seven primary chakras you are becoming one with the cosmos, receptive to stimuli to which, in the time before, you were insensate.
You’ve felt the powerful kundalini energy rising up from your roots, passing through the sacred waters of the sacral, basking in the fire of the solar plexus, breathing in the vital breath of the heart, absorbing the ethereal voice of the throat, pouring through the dissolution of the Third Eye, and spilling up and out like a mighty fountainhead into the greater cosmos.
2. You are beginning to want more freedom and less stuff:
Your heart is not heavy with materialistic burden. You understand that ownership-based love can never be true love. You realize like Osho said, “Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” And although there are some people in the world who are so poor all they have is money, you continue to love without expecting anything in return. You have frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation for the abundance the natural world has to offer. Like Gandhi, you live simply so that others may simply live.
3. You realize that the door to your prison cell is wide open (and always has been):

Rumi, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”

You have a growing propensity toward breaking mental paradigms, stretching comfort zones and thinking outside of the current box. You have a tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experiences, and you are constantly attempting to recondition any and all preconditions.
You enjoy each moment, relishing, in carpe-diem-ecstasy, your bountiful freedom. It was Rumi who asked, “Why do you stay in prison when the door is wide open?”
4. The world is a playground, and you are on recess:
You don’t take yourself too seriously. You realize that, though hard work is necessary, sincere play is paramount. You understand that play is the only way that the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold. Your sense of humor has become your safety net. You understand that sincerity is primary and should always trump seriousness. Like Nietzsche wrote, “The struggle of maturity is to recover the seriousness of a child at play.”
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• The 3 Stages of Awakening. ~ Vishnu Prasad

Art Attack // AWAKENINGS Timelapse Mural by Eric Skotnes

SoulPancake


   

Published on Oct 12, 2012

Spray paint mural artist Eric Skotnes tackles the theme of "AWAKENINGS" in this episode of Art Attack! See more from Eric at: http://eskotnes.blogspot.com and his official site: http://ericskotnes.com

MUSIC: "Wake Me" Instrumental by Dynah.

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We are created by Universal Love with the intention of spreading Love and making the lives of others a masterpiece.

Align Yourself with Universal Love

By

Michael Cupo

– July 28, 2013Posted 

By Michael Cupo.
We make our life what it is, but we are not the creator of it. We are created by Universal Love with the intention of spreading Love and making the lives of others a masterpiece.
Think of your life as a giant canvas. Everyday you have an opportunity to paint a new picture. The more your mind is settled, the more in touch you become with your creative self. You can make each day a masterpiece inspired by love, or you can just create an ordinary day of existence. There is nothing wrong in this, it just that life isn’t lived to the fullest. It is still beautiful in its essence, but its beauty is not known because of unconsciousness. You are not the creator of life, but you create the way the life you are given is lived.
Although we don’t create life itself (only the Universe can do that), we are responsible for how it is lived. Our origin is not of our doing. No matter what humans do, we will never be as miraculous as our creator.


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