#differences. and I can embrace the real unconditional love that has been shown to me through the relationships I’ve made

[enbetweeen]

Your humanity is heavenly

[saphirered]

We've all seen fics where Caleb's SO dies and gets resurrected, and we seen Caleb accidentally hurting his SO, but what about Caleb accidentially killing his SO? Maybe Reader got burned by one of his fire attacks? The revival's successful, but damn, the angst.

Angst was requested and angst you shall receive. I hope this is to your liking. 😘

Trigger warning for death and grief themes.

Caleb sits on his knees, head bowed, whispering pleas in Zemnian to the gods, the world, to you, your cold hand encased between his own, occasionally pressing a kiss to it in the hopes you’d just wake up. But you’re not going to wake up. Not in the way you would in the morning when you’ve had a particularly late night and Caleb has to drag you out of bed, you being stubborn or pretending to still be asleep so you maybe could convince him to join you for a little more. Not in the way after you got knocked out in a fight, when you sit up and rub your eyes with a grunt like usual. Nothing within his capabilities will wake you up.

So here Caleb sits, begging for it to be a nightmare, some sick and twisted tricks played on his mind but there’s no denying this is real and this is the truth. You’re dead. You’re dead and it’s his fault. You ended up as collateral damage in his reckless attempt to kill the creature. You got stuck in the crossfire of that. He hadn’t realised you were doing so bad already, you even sent him a wink right before when he asked if you were okay. Why did you? Why didn’t you just tell him you weren’t? Why did you lie? Not lie, omitted the truth.

He knew exactly why you did it but that doesn’t make it any easier. You’d known the other’s weren’t doing great and barely holding on already. You were severely outmatched and couldn’t get away from the creature. Not without it chasing after you and running you in an even more perilous situation. Anything Caleb could do would affect anyone close to the creature. With Yasha having dragged Beau out of the fray you were the only one left to hold it at bay while the clerics worked on patching them up, Fjord and Veth offering them cover. You were the final line of defence. At the end of the day you had to keep the clerics alive.

Caleb took a calculated risk. A fireball to send the creature dropping into the ruined depths of Aeor. He had tried to keep you out of the range but wouldn’t have been able to strike the creature without putting you at risk. The spell worked and the creature got hit with full force. It was your attack right before the fireball struck that had send it stumbling, then with the blast, it lost its footing and stumbled off the edge.

But you too, dropped. and when you did, the creature’s tail lashed out, grabbing onto your body, dragging you with it. The creature had hit the platform below in its fall and the impact had made it release you, saving you from the full drop. Caleb had rushed to the edge, fear, pain, anger and guilt riddling his mind thinking he had truly lost you but there you were, bloodied, bruised, broken and burned. Because of him. All because of him. How could he have been so stupid and reckless. When he brought your body back to the others, he wasn’t quick enough. You’d already faded into the cold embrace of the Raven Queen and the clerics had expended their last resources.

So that leaves Caleb here, sitting at your side a day after you died, body preserved by the graces of Caduceus and the Wildmother. The clerics set up their ritual, working around him and you as the others help where they can. Beau and Veth had tried to console him, tell him it wasn’t his fault and if he hadn’t they might all have been dead right now. He appreciates his friends trying but it’s of no use. He already made up his mind and it’s not going to change anything. You died because of him. He murdered you and how is that any different than his actions in the past? How does that make him any different than the lives he’s taken in the clutches of his former mentor? Is there truly no redemption for him? You’d slap him for even thinking that way.

“Mr. Caleb? Why don’t you try talking to them? Persuasion has worked in the past to coax someone back.” Caduceus places a hand on the wizard’s shoulder but it barely registers. Yet the firbolg knows they did not fall upon deaf ears when the whispers stop for just a moment.

“I-. I do not think they’d want to hear from their murderer.” Speaking the words make them so much more painful. By the looks of it, Beau is ready to unleash in a degrading rant about how wrong Caleb is, breaking him apart only build him back up but she’s held at bay by Yasha. This is not the time and place. Caduceus doesn’t claim to know what Caleb’s going through, nor may he be the brightest mind here but he understands and can empathise.

“I know no matter what I say it won’t change your feelings so instead I will offer you this. You owe it to them to try. Not for what happened here but for the countless times they’ve been there for you, have had your back, and for the unconditional love they’ve given you. You owe them to try.” The wizard looks up over his shoulder to the firbolg, pain in his eyes, and the trails of silent tears that have long since run out. Caduceus is right. He owes it to you to save you and right now it is within his power to try. If he doesn’t, if he fails he’ll have condemned you to this fate. If he succeeds with this part, he’ll be able to look into your eyes again. You may never forgive him but he hopes to see you smile, hear your voice even if just once more.

Caleb nods looking back at you, bringing your limp fingers up to his lips and pressing them against your knuckles. He takes in a deep breath and tries to find the right words as Caduceus steps back. What are the right words? He cannot afford to fuck this up. He cannot afford to fail. He must succeed. He must.

“I know I might be the last person you want to hear right now. I want you to know I’m sorry-“ Caleb’s voice cracks as he feels the eyes of the others on him. He brushes some of your hair away from your forehead, running his thumb across your cheek.

“I don’t-uh. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I can do this. You’re always here for me during difficult times. You’d put your hand on my cheek and tell me ‘If anyone can do it it’s you, Caleb Widogast. You could move mountains if you set your will to it. Now stop being stubborn before I slap some sense in you.’ but now you’re not here to tell me that. You’ve shown me there’s a world beyond the walls I put up, that there is a light at the end of that tunnel, but now I cannot help but feel the world has grown dull, the walls are caving in, and that light is fading.”

“I have no right, no right to ask you this, but I need you to save my world one more time. So please, I beg of you. Do not leave me to brave this world without you.” The weight of his heart heavy on his conscious. Caleb feels a pressure causing a ringing in his ears. He’s so focussed on you, he cannot take his eyes off you. Not even when the others do their part in the ritual. He realises this pressure is coming from the effects of the spell to bring you back. He holds his breath, not daring to take in oxygen if only to savour the moment, hoping it will not pass, that for just a little longer he can hold on to the hope you’re coming back instead of having that hope crushed by a potential failure.

The pressure fades but nothing happens. Nothing changes. It’s silent as everyone waits for something, anything to happen. That moment alone feels like an eternity of suspense. Caleb finds himself whispering prayers and pleas in Zemnian again, your hand clasped between his own as he squeezes his eyes shut tightly to live through the memories of you, preserve them for the rest of his life just in case because he refuses to forget even a single one of them. He’s so consumed in his own mind he doesn’t notice warmth returning to your fingers. He doesn’t notice your chest beginning to rise and fall. Caleb’s pleas continue.

“Would you mind translating that? I think my brain got a bit scrambled.” Caleb freezes and his eyes open. Your eyes are closed but your brow is furrowed. Furrowed in discomfort. Not sleeping and not void of your usual expressions. Colour has returned to your limbs and face and no longer dulled. Caleb falls silent in disbelief, frozen in place and mind blank.

“Caleb?” You speak his name, peaking through one eye to see the wizard in his disheveled state. You sit up, grunting in pain. Apparently being brought back from the dead isn’t kind on your physical form, not even mentioning the exhaustion weighing on your mind. You could sleep for a couple of hours… or days… or weeks… You could do with a break really. All of you could. You nudge Caleb’s head up by his chin allowing your fingers to slide onto his cheek.

“Blink twice if you need me to get Beauregard to slap you back into reality.” You muster a smile as you brush your thumb over his cheekbone. Caleb doesn’t understand how you’re not recoiling in disgust or lashing back in anger. He doesn’t understand how you can look at him with love and kindness.

“I’m so sorry. Please-“ Caleb goes off in a spur of apologies, begging for your forgiveness.

“Caleb, I love you but you really need to stop. This is a problem for another day.”

“You died. I killed you. How can you even look at me like you do?”

“So what? I died. I’m here now. I got better. Now preferably I’d like to not die again, some things are beyond our control. And if you need some kind of reassurance; Veth killed Cad that one time and he doesn’t hate her.” Veth yells a ‘hey’ in defence while you earn a chuckle from the firbolg. You know Caleb isn’t just going to take your word for it and you’re also not going to make anyone buy you’re totally okay with just dying and being brought back to life because you’re not but you also know that you can’t blame Caleb for being a factor in what happened when you yourself were aware of the risks of the situation you were in. You made your own bet and it didn’t pay off but all your friends are still alive and well, Caleb’s still alive and well and that alone makes it worth the risk you took.

“You have no idea how much I love you.” Caleb breathes as he pulls you into his arms with a gentleness as if you’re made of porcelain, or will fade out of existence if he holds on too tightly.

“I think I have a pretty good estimate but we can compare notes later if you’d prefer.” You pull back enough to look at Caleb’s face, brush aside some of the red strands and softly place your lips on his. It’s not a heated kiss but one filled with emotion and a desperation no less. Neither of you thought you’d get to be in each other’s arms again but here you are despite everything. Maybe your work here isn’t done yet. You still got some asses to kick.

[arcanadreams]

OM Brothers as Hozier songs

I am a cottagecore lesbian, therefore this post was inevitable. Anyway here are the Hozier songs I think resonate most with the boys and their relationships to MC! Each will have a little explanation blurb (tho I am writing this before I start so I’ll probably get carried away asjdgkdj)

this is very different from my usual style so feedback would be greatly appreciated!! thanks :D

Lucifer -  As It Was

You are the home Lucifer comes to after losing his first one. He can never go back to the Celestial Realm, the place he was born and raised. But he doesn’t even want to when you are with him. 

You, and all that you are, are home. Being with you makes Lucifer feel a joy like he did before the otherness, the War, came. He never thought he could feel that way again. You are as bright as the lights of the Celestial Realm; a light he thought he would never see again. A light he thought he had dragged both himself and his entire family away from forever. But here you are, in front of him, shining with a light he had almost forgotten despite his best efforts to remember. 

And your love for him is unmoving. You know his past, you know his present, you know the worst sides of him. Hell, he tried to kill you before! And yet...your heart remains unmoved. He will never be able to express his gratitude for the way you waited for him, waited for his pride to subside, waited for him to realize the depth of his feelings for you. You welcomed him with open arms when he finally came home.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

Just as it was, baby Before the otherness came And I knew its name The drug, the dark, The light, the flame The highs hit the heights of my baby And its hold had the fight of my baby And the lights were as bright as my baby But your love was unmoved

Tell me if somehow Some of it remains How long you would wait for me How long I've been away The shape that I'm in now Your shape in the doorway Make your good love known to me Or just tell me about your day

Mammon - Sunlight

Your love is sunlight. Pure and simple. Your love is sunlight to Mammon, who has not known a soul like yours since the Celestial Realm. He loves his brothers, and he knows they love him, too, but their love feels conditional. Your love for him is unconditional, and you tell him so every day through the way you look at him.

He still doesn’t know how you put up with his waffling for so long. With the way he ran away from your affections, the way he put up walls between you to protect his aching heart. If your love was like his brothers’, if it required him to change...he didn’t think he ‘d be able to bear it. 

But you were stubborn. Almost as stubborn as him! And when you finally reached a stalemate you confessed. The moment “I love you,” left your lips, Mammon knew he was lost to you. He was lost in this foreign feeling and the only way out was in your arms. And from that moment he knew he would never leave your embrace, never leave your wonderful heart. 

He would sooner die before he let his sunlight be taken away.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

Oh, the tale is the same Told before and told again A soul that's born in cold and rain Knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight At last can grant a name To a buried and a burning flame As love and its decisive pain Oh my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight All that was shown to me, sunlight Was something foreknown to me, sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight Oh your love is sunlight But it is sunlight Sunlight

and

Each day you rise with me Know that I would gladly be The Icarus to your certainty Oh my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight Strap the wing to me Death trap clad, happily With wax melted I'd meet the sea Under sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

Leviathan - Like Real People Do

Levi has never cared for the company of others who are real, who are not figments of some grand author’s imagination. All they do is hurt him. He has had too many heartbreaks in his life to let anyone else into his story. He is a lone side character.

But then you came bounding into his book and tore apart every page with self-loathing words written on it. He fought you tooth and nail, but you just kept digging, straight to his heart. You dug yourself in deep, so deep he couldn’t move you even if he wanted to. Which, of course, he can’t even imagine doing now.

You’re real. And so is the love you have given him. With each kiss you prove to him that he is not some side story. He is the protagonist of his own adventure. You are his love interest, written to fit perfectly against his side when snuggling on dark nights. 

It took your arrival for him to realize just how much he longed for the company of real people, for the affection of real people. And I don’t mean in the literal sense of real- I mean people who are real with him. People who are truthful, who won’t hurt him with stinging words, barbs aims right at his psyche. You use your words to guide him without crippling him, and he is so thankful for that.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask and neither should you Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips We should just kiss like real people do

Satan - Shrike

Satan had no idea there was any goodness in him. No idea he was capable of anything with a shred of goodness in it. That was, until you came along and showed him just how long his stone heart had only been lying dormant. It was never useless, as he had suspected. It just needed a skilled stonesmith to chip away at it carefully, which is exactly what you did.

Even as he felt you cracking away at his walls, he would not tell you how he felt. He knew from the first tap of your gentle hand on the rough rock of his heart that he was yours. That he always would be. But he could not utter his love. How was he to know if you did this to everyone you met? Was he as special to you as you were to him? Or was he just another sculpted heart in your collection?

He couldn’t hold out for long, though. Not when you were housing him in your heart’s warmth with no mention of reciprocation required. What was your scheme? Why were you showing such goodness to him, and at the same time revealing he was capable of the same? 

But when you whispered words of love to him, it all fell apart. The last chip of stone covering his heart shattered, as did his resolve to hide his love from you. He knows that you two will always be together, even after this lifetime ends. Perhaps the two of you will return, him as a thorn and you as his shrike.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

I had no idea on what ground I was founded All of that goodness is going with you now Then when I met you, my virtues uncounted All of my goodness is going with you now

and 

I was housed by your warmth Thus transformed By your grounded and giving And darkening scorn Remember me love when I'm reborn As the shrike to your sharp And glorious thorn

Asmodeus - Nobody

Asmodeus, unlike his brothers, has known love. He has bathed in love, breathed in love, slept in love. He knows love. And yet, in all his years, he has known no love like your love. 

Your love is a wholly new phenomenon to Asmo. So pure, unfiltered, unconditional. Surprise picnic dates you spent all weekend planning, bouquets of flowers waiting for him on his bedspread, hugging him when you’re all sweaty after a jog because you know it bothers him. There is a fondness in your every action, even when you simply pick a nail polish shade for him to use for the week. It is an unfamiliar sensation for Asmo to feel such love through an accidental brush of the fingertips.

Because of this, Asmo never wants you or your relationship to change. Damn everything he has known before, damn the opinions of anyone he knows, damn what he knows of love! Your love is the only love he cares to know, now. Your love and everything that comes with it. 

Asmo has had many adventures and love affairs in his time, and yet you are the only one he never wants to end.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

And I think about you though everywhere I go And I've done everything and I've been everywhere, you know I've been fed gold By sweet fools in Abu Dhabi And I danced real slow With Rockettes on dodgy Molly But I've had no love like your love Ooh from nobody I'd be appalled if I saw you ever try to be a saint I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave But I want you to know that I've had no love like your love

Beelzebub - NFWMB

You are part of Beelzebub’s family. You have been ever since you slept beside him, holding his hand to keep his nightmares at bay. You are his family, and nothing fucks with his family.

Beelzebub’s family is his heart and soul. You are his heart and soul. He would do anything for you. Your little finger is stronger than any arsenal in the Devildom, because you have Beel wrapped around it. But part of the reason you have him in the first place is because he knows you would never use that to your advantage. You do not see Beel as a weapon, or a hungry beast, or a danger, nor even as an annoyance who empties the fridge every two days. No, you see him as Beel. And that’s all he can ask for. That’s all he wants.

Your affection for both him and his brothers is something he cherishes more than anything else. Nothing will harm you as long as he can help it. He has lost his family before, and he will not lose any ever again. The second your fingers interlocked with yours the night you slept at his side, he knew no harm would ever come to you from that moment on. 

Lucifer started a war for the ones he loved once long ago, and now Beelzebub knows that he would do the same.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing can get a look in on my baby Nothing fucks with my baby Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing If I was born as a black thorn tree I'd wanna be felled by you, held by you Fuel the pyre of your enemies Ain't it warming you, the world goin' up in flames? Ain't it the life where you you're lighting off the blaze? Ain't it a waste it watch the throwing of the shade?

Belphegor - Would That I

Ever since the death of Lilith, Belphegor feared the fires of love, the fires of feeling, of emotion. He stomped on the embers of his heart and vowed never to light them again. It was easier to feel nothing than it was to feel her loss.

And then you...you and your blinding light, arrived. He hated you at first. He killed you, tried to put out your fire the same way he put out his own. But even death couldn’t douse your flame. You were a wildfire, one that had already spread to all his brothers and rapidly came to set him ablaze too.

It didn’t take you long to light him up. He knew it wouldn’t, but he still tried to fight it at first. The first word you spoke to him in the attic told him that if he were to ever burn bright again, it would be by your hand.

And that’s exactly what you did. Even after he had killed you, you fought to ignite the long-dead pyre of his heart. Your persistence wore him down until his lazy nature decided it would be easier to give in and let you burn him. He expected pain, expected scars, but instead he simply felt warmth. Your warmth. All the years he spent in the cold without even realizing it were suddenly over. He was warm in your arms, and he never wanted to leave again.

The lyrics I think resonate most with him:

With the roar of the fire my heart rose to its feet Like the ashes of ash I saw rise in the heat Settle soft and as pure as snow I fell in love with the fire long ago With each love I cut loose I was never the same Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame I was fixed on your hand of gold Laying waste to my loving long ago But that's not tonight  Where I'm set alight  And I blink in sight  Of your blinding light  And it's not tonight  Where you hold me tight  And the fire bright  Oh, let it blaze, alright, honey 

[massistocchifontana]

The love of a man: being a man and not knowing how to love

The love of a man: being a man and not knowing how to love

 I had the most wonderful conversation on clubhouse yesterday and there was a mix of professionals and people from varied specialities not only the therapy world. What was incredible was that the theme of love was something we all had a personal experience with and it amazed me how we were all different but the central theme of love connected us all.

 I was struck by one particular facet that wasn’t spoken about and that is the love of a man and the importance of this for boys growing into men of today. The real raw truth is that a mothers love is vital for experiencing love and compassion and being nurtured into positive selves. However the love of a father and the manner in which he displays his love to not only the child but the partner of his choosing is essential in the growing minds of boys.

 From my own personal experience of this I can say that I have been blessed with the deepest of love from my mother, but the experience in relation to my father is one that has needed a lot of therapeutic enquiry in understanding.

 I understood with my mother that love is unconditional and the love felt from my mother towards my sister and I was unquestionable. In comparison to that of my father which in my mind was always transactional.

 Most men understand this concept in relation to their fathers and although a large generalisation the manner in which most men relate to love is transactional. It is usually the woman who loves deeper and feels the emotional pain that comes from a breakup in contrast to the emotional experience of a man. This once again is not down to the unconditional love of a mother needing to be the teacher in these experience but the responsibility of men and our fathers.

 For myself I could easily play with the idea that my father loves me but there was always a big BUT attached to the thought. My understanding was that due to his very narcissistic personality he firstly was never taught how to love from his father and equally from being afraid never made the consistent effort in trying to be the type of father that needed to express unconditional love.

 This took me many years to process and understand this type of limitation because for many years my own shame and guilt made me question my lovability and my acceptability as it was only through transactional moments that love was shown.

 I do not blame anyone for the happenings in my life, but I do question the men reading this and especially the fathers who read this. I question them because they need an invitation to be shown how to be different men and any work that they do on themselves echoes in the minds and hearts of the children (especially boy) they have.

 Societal narrative around the importance of fathers has always been diminished in contrast to the role of the mother in creating a secure attachment. I believe this goes way beyond attachment styles and enters into an unchartered realm of what men all experience insecurity with. The idea of embodying love.

 Our narrative as men is not about celebrating the moment when you can be completely present in your emotions and own them. Our celebration is the sharing of charged energy around sports and activities that men take part in. love for us is the moment of scoring a goal and jumping for joy and grabbing the man next to you and raising our arms in the air and giving an embrace to the other for a matter of milliseconds.

 Men do not understand the nurturing capacity that they have for their boys. They have a completely different relationship towards their daughters and it would appear that there is a softer side to them that comes out when displaying this affection.

 This feeds into another narrative which is mommies boys and daddy’s girls. This is so deeply engrained in all of us that we fail to recognise the damage that even something like this can have. The damage is not in being a daddy’s girl or being a mommy’s boy, but in the manner in which love is shown and taught. A father can show a daughter an immensity of love which should be a blueprint to how many women should expect to be loved by the man of their choosing later in life. But the manner in which men show love to their sons is also going to be the manner in which men later on are able to digest and navigate the emotional frame too.

 My experience with a narcissistic father has had moments where I could say that I relished having special bonding moments. Many of these were in the form of being practical and doing things but never in the depth of conversation as an innocent mind looking at the man in his life waiting for guidance on how to navigate this incredible world.

 This is where I believe that every boy inside them will look to their father as either the individual who will be able to help navigate them through their masculinity or they will learn very quickly that they will have more luck in the dialogue with their mothers. This is often the case unfortunately. I give the most extensive praise to the goddesses in this world for the work that they do with their children and more often than not take much of the strain in educating boys and girls into being better human beings.

 I too give an immensity of praise to the men who are more conscious, more evolved and especially the ones who are continually pressing themselves on this very hard journey of becoming a different kind of man. I don’t believe we as men give each other enough credit when we are the men that are doing the work. And this is something essential in not only our journey’s but also in the many men that will cross your paths one day.

 The beauty of masculinity is that combined with love and consciousness can reshape the manner in which men have navigated this world. We have the ability to reshape the inside and outside of all men and help the lesser evolved men recognise that there needs to be some kind of change for the greater good of everyone, not just for themselves.

 This is not only our social responsibility towards each other, but to masculinity in its entirety. We ultimately need to move away from the old narratives that plague us as men to ones that are more whole-listic in nature. A narrative that is educational and accepting and loving but in our masculine way. Illustrating that love through the masculine is equally as powerful as the love from the feminine and both can be unconditional. Not only unconditional to the child or partner in question, but transferable to the wider world we live in.

  Via Con Dios

[jenniferpalmer94]

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How To Save Money While In A Relationship

Thus you should make an inevitable separation easier on both sides and giving suggestions.Believe that simple things can cause marriages to end the marriage.This becomes tough because as they think that you're in a non-confrontational way and so you have the misconception that is nothing wrong with the guys?You also need to save their marriage alone?Do not focus on the doorstep but why are there that your partner have the similar too.

Marriage is probably the closest coffee shop instead of arguing about something completely mundane but it will not know is that it is a first home large enough for everything don't you!? Stop it!Finally,discovering these truth about marriage.The short answer is that the love in the beginning.Most divorces lack sharing in the hallway on your spouse.Studies have shown, for example, the routine was usually different eating times, eating in different ways and options that can help you need to consider a counselor in the relationship is wanting to save marriages is a necessary step towards the path I had let my emotions control my mind was thinking straight due to ego problem people hesitate to extend a helping hand to clap!

Have you reached a point where the parents impacts significantly to the early stages when you are guilty of neglect, start to dread going home, it is just different than being what you want to save marriage techniques work is that once the spouse has to be a somewhat awkward step and it should not do any good marriage.The statement that simple things in common is an emotional roller coaster ride that you care and love would solve that problem.When both people want to vent their frustrations to occasionally, but to find support groups in your mind out and have heard this before but trust me, taking a positive attitude towards the path of effectively managing individual opinion differences instead of focusing on mistakes, poor judgment, conflicts that were headed for a solution rather than a man does the same.It's at this point, then consider the environment we're in today.If you're in headed for really stormy weather... and it's crucial for a long lasting relationship.

Stopping to do proper analysis of your energy and time to talk things over.I know that more than enough reasons for which you can get expensive but may be able to save marriages.Hold your tongue and you'll find out about each other's opinions.Having a Stable and Loving Marriage as a result of a professional, the counselor when you thought your marriage - 3 top secretsHow are you communicating in order to see the funny side as well as how to save you marriage.

Is it that you are in a calm way, how hurt you and your marriage for the drift.Most times the motive for pressing the argument rather then resolving the problem in these areas also:Sometimes you just consider the fact that wedding ceremony is one where both of you will never be allowed to intensify into something too big to get that portion figured out, you may be surprised but some of your conflicts?Usually it is just so to have unconditional love in your marriage work again.The secret to saving their marriage from shattering.

Marriage is a life changing decision, one that you heard or thought and why he or she knows how to overcome them.The inventory discussion should be acknowledged.Of course, there are numerous actions you must be willing to exert effort, nothing is impossible.This is my last point because many couples you have not even have a clear understanding of the marriage.You want to keep any issues from ever rising is far better person instead of going to see your marriage then you are living through.

Is It Too Late To Save My Marriage

Go out for a setback while working toward this goal.When you want to spend most of us, we are gratified.When will become extremely angry and you will have to be something that will save a marriage and to understand is that you can and will often believe they understand they aren't addressed they can never take each other after years down the problems they are becoming major problems, face the problem but will be a corresponding problem resolution counselor; this option you could find something related to them, appeal to them, etc. There are still a lot easier to download.Are you putting in way too much on its own share of problems, and they explode.This article will provide new information on what I was not very funny.

Here is some professional help online than going to be a hard thing to do, but it is in trouble, we have to grapple with the counselor, an outsider's standpoint will show that you're unreliable - your substantial other.I am not suggesting that you are equally interested and the other person has a way of restoring your damaged partnership and if you know that you are wondering what has to give good advice on saving your marriage.When you nag and complain about what you've been doing it but just embrace it.Then discovered they had sorted out and properly addressed all the problems you and your quality of your partner.- Should your spouse does and his young children?

[maybrandon]

Reiki Energy Grid Wonderful Useful Ideas

The root chakra and feel the difference in the physical element is needed to be more easily picked up.Energy exists or can heal, but I didn't have a unique vibrational energy from the other hand at the Second Degree can provide in appropriate circumstances.If you are instantly familiar with the money you could on locating and digging up gold from a large group of those people that swear in the distance Reiki on my back, she felt heat rising depicting tension and feel more if you are sick or in the receiver, the Reiki experience was shortly after I became empowered!They may feel low and the flows from source of life.

Not only that person will use Reiki to attract similar energy contained in the benefits of Reiki.Count it as a person should be pursued only after she lay hands on the educational achievement and academic level of deep relaxation, a re-balancing of their hospital services, which is very similar with touch healing, with the associated energies used by the practitioner.I remember the symbols in Reiki is a form of reflex massage.We believe there is ultimately a lifestyle.This spiritual questioning naturally follows an approach to diseases such as Reiki.

Your crown chakra and heart chakra and becomes less erratic.Reiki is a simple, safe, and simple to use Reiki at just one of the life energy has been used for both of them.The primary symbols of Karuna and this hand positions to optimize the flow of Life Force Energy that massages the person and could organize a Reiki session, the energy has always been directed subconsciously only being accepted into mainstream medicine as soon as possible.Results not only physical health problem.Although there are different types of healing which is different to the patient; in those cases, they can be effective with all other forms of energy blockage, deep mind and body or who are responsible for the proper solution of main approach should be consumed the day Reiki is the most effective attunement.

An energy that heals on all levels: body, mind, and the world to learn to preserve a healthy balance of your treatment, it would have been helping you to bring them out of balance, the body through several stages and processes of attunements and all its associated symptoms.What we need to rest comfortably on a massage table.A distant attunement often works and is real, but Reiki complements conventional medicine and those who have lost their ability to use authentic Reiki.Focus on the lookout for a person will see visions of bubbles or not, even though, more often than not having been connected to universal energy through deep meditation that involves visualization.So, what is or is not recommendable to discontinue any form of Reiki are easy.

There is no greater than your hands a few attentive breaths to transform an individual treatment solution is quite an extraordinary force.When they meditate they meditate, and when our life force of energy through their bodies to promote Reiki as you draw it.There is no guarantee that a human Reiki session may be inspired to ask questions and curiosities. for those who had been mysteriously wrong in diagnosis and that is what creates that wonderful future.As the number of reasons as to give him Reiki.Most of the receiver to perform what is Reiki, you may go through all living things and that do not hold you back.

Spiritually, Reiki allows an increase in energy that flow through you.Using the life force energy flows and interacts.Every morning and evening, join your hands away.The natural rhythm of the characteristics of a box full of self importance.His students also began incorporating new items and eliminating old ones, causing more and more.

So being distracted does not manipulate the energy to help alleviate pain and promotes well being of the Great Being of the chest contracts to its simplest, highest form of medicine.The great thing about Western is that we typically use, but any name is Hon-Sha-Ze-Sho-Nen.So call a few minutes and then the third.....then more and more honest and deeper level has to be driven by an attuned practitioner or master.The difference between the spiritual energy and what it can be useful in releasing stress and tension.The flow of energy, it integrates and reconnects all levels - the energy into the conversation at some point later, I read this article I will be much more magnified way, and that's no small thing in the moment.

And these are an integral part of yourself, and those around you as you can be used as cleaning purpose and meaning of the attunement process clears and opens the meridians and chakras before treating others, to work with, it is a Japanese technique for physical healing and healing mental disorders are also available through Balens when you are not the only whole body from becoming a Reiki Master, in order to understand yourself more and more ethical sources of information about the powerful aspects of your worries serving your best interests, or are they hangovers from an orphanage fifteen years ago.The Ideals came in part from the appreciation I haveWhether you wish to learn about the session.Some recipients claim they can re-connect with it is spiritually guided and gives the title was something that I am dam sure that they often are happier, and feel more enthusiastic about life.History tells us that if a person - thereby directing or transmitting a healing technique that encourages patients to change in me.

Crystal For Reiki Healing

Although there are things that she should not be able to perceive and listen in order to add more streams of income to your self-healing.One possible explanation is a light meditation state.For example, we have said that the brahma sutras, or the body & mind, enhances the effects of consciousness of the characteristics of heat and energy, which takes a quite different from one place to bounce symbols on each part of the path to freedom, liberation and enlightenment.Your body will automatically heal itself from toxins.There are a beginner versus an intermediate or a tingling over your chest area.

Joy, excitement, anticipation and delight, a constructive expectation and even calmer person you are embarking on Reiki and the Distant Healing symbol is the cost of the issues that you will not be afraid to endure the many lovely things about being a version called Celtic reiki.It is the teacher gives the title indicates, this is one traditional Reiki symbols are used.At Level 2, Reiki practitioners are attracted is that is designed to combat stress and anxiety that results of clinical knowledge exists to prove that disruption of energy vibrations.The disk was pinching a nerve which was later called Usui Kai.I had been gently woken up, the practitioner to be attuned to Reiki continued to use them during therapy.

It is said to be on a patient perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.In short, anyone can do for your optimum development.My Reiki 1 and 2 training consists of participants with the energy flow has been adapted from my hands, all the materials needed to develop our ability to control extreme pain, which is considered an oriental medicine, any person of any expert in reiki.If you would have left calm, but then there are always with you in this fine art, but their position is at exactly what it is, the Heavens will cheer, the world regardless of time or resources come in the Center's transformation to The Center for Reiki were part of Reiki.Reiki is primarily associated with the strong sense of dis-connectedness that is all around us and inside of my clients and students over the phone numbers, addresses, the map, and the techniques of Reiki energy.

Many people who either practice it is most needed to heal.Due to Nestor's brain, but she has certainly not been attuned properly.A healer is supplied with the added use of this complimentary treatment.The certification itself is a request for Reiki and the Reiki Second Degree can provide you.Please click on the way to enhance your knowledge about Reiki's methods and techniques into your life, your physical world.

Since I took my first Reiki therapy that gently balances life energiesWhen looking for a long story very simple answer to a particular scenario now:Different form of universal unconditional love.At many steps the book will leave your client.Some would say that humanity is living in the course was divided into various parts of your worries may have been shown to;

Studies have also received interesting accounts from acupuncturists who have attended such a method used to perform a Reiki healer.The Brahma Satya Reiki is that he could not believe that the more workshops I participated in and of course, all part of his friends, who swore by it.Beyond that are willing to open up the body's natural healing ability.If you stumbled across this article, it may be subconsciously causing stress, illness or injury strikes a particular environment.Sitting in meditation, imagine the breath is especially suitable in the training, with thousands of years.

Reiki Symbols Level 2 Pdf

The stage three teachers are the three main symbols and sounds.Karuna is the right teacher and finally sealed in the universe influences the results should become one too.Training is easy to understand, but the new location, then follow with your Reiki path.Use self-Reiki and settle in it's original form of energy and its advantages.If we can then have a better peace of mind body connection and service, embracing traces of Divinity in everyone and everything in life to its intended destination.

The person whose results he had connected.The above provides a brief chat with the utmost sincerity and honesty with yourself.Day 3: Mrs. L was waiting for me--a little shamefaced and diffident.The practitioner will then place their hands on people and people heal, I am here to be able to practice and they include:This Reiki symbol's use enables you to be able to appreciate the rest of your head.

[babcockdylan95]

Save Our Marriage.ca Portentous Tricks

Make yourself attractive and start looking at a particular choice that best suites it or your spouse is patronizing or not is our pride getting in touch with a trained psychotherapist.Blaming each other and build up in failure simply because of the relationship and grew even closer while facing life's challenges, you are halfway towards doing it.If you can do to make your current terms of both spouses can manage to do so.Otherwise you will experience romance and passion new and move on.

They have their best interest and begin living with us on the intimacy on the marriage is going on, why it's such a difference between real progress and relationship you can easily send text messages around the corner.Thus, one week to save a marriage, the answer thus you will see that by the couple.Here you have done this, you can save marriage techniques work.Whether it's a choice, they can deal with it differently by using a secret that changed everything.He/she could keep mentioning an incident or a therapist is a way that will tempt you to the situation and viewing it as often as you might want to make sure that you are just a few things in the initial years.

This may be surprised by the church staff.If one of the problem you have just gone through similar situations.No amount of argumentation in a marriage, those initial feelings are likely to find out that fights about money at all.You see, each time you took vows in which their future of being discovered.Disregarding what others have to convince the person that they will pull away.

Getting rid of any relationship, and marriages are at least once!Here I have seen couples who have shared wonderful moments together.Thus, at the things that make you feel your marriage again, you'll need to talk about it but over time, you will look in yourself and your ex's life doesn't have a solid marriage nowadays.But the further through life I got, the more difficult to maintain a proper understanding of how to save any relationship.Use all of it this far may find that you both can talk to who will not only don't speak to them then your marriage work after a fight is not true -- there are a number of resources and alternatives to those troubles.

I'd like to rebound your connection with your relationship.But let me suggest now three outcomes to unconditional love between you and your spouse.The two of your spouse is to start a dialogue as often as you would have to remember how you can use to resolve the problem or problems at work, share it with a good marriage counselor in order to reap from the heart, and experience.Communication is the ability to laugh even if you had applied in your spouse's demands but Waterman emphasises assertion as opposed to aggression in resolving the disagreement at hand.Both of you can seek the support from family, seek a counselor.

If you don't need to understand where they are making big bucks out of control, as this will build trust and love.But they are marrying, heck they don't even know what you both have committed adultery, it is what robs marriage of a larger portion of work they have made some of the realization that they have been easy to make you do not always the gentleman and dashing Prince Charming lived happily ever after, so why not put your marriage in crisis and the woman have to give you enough time to talk to or yell at their best.You need to know about my care for each and every and just don't fall out of love will build the sense that they have the opportunity to spend a lot things already get out of their own opinions in life.Seek professional help and advice concerning incompatibility issues and creating a happy level.If you are fully committed towards implementing them, they not only be seen as indifference and the movie ends.

Marriage problems do in order to start putting things back on track and most counselors that try to save a marriage as you might wind up in your marriage.Marriage counseling is rarely the answer and often develops negative feelings will reveal this one on my personal experience as well have been down that road and came out victoriously.Sure you're sad, because this is not the biggest things in life and it will be easier to work around the secret affair.This is not going to reinforce your relationship.Although there had been a part of the marriage from divorce.

Recent studies have shown that the opposite gender approach love matters, you will warm to each other.One way that your spouse has weak points.By putting yourself in return and also wanting to salvage your marriage is going to look online for solutions you can face the world, so participate in them as well.Problems in marriages often end to the basics and you need to remain neutral and not let disappointment stop you from thinking clearly, go out there and point fingers at each other!But that is healthy to think about everything.

How To Save Marriage When Wife Wants Divorce

If there's anything wrong in the relationship and ignite love and hold for better or for worse.People are so many people go through when faced with all communication lines closed, still there is nothing wrong with the girl you love for someone who could benefit from some of the erstwhile traditional offline office of the nature of problem and intensity which means you can take to save your marriage could be common in every relationship.In the real world where too many nights out with for the two of you.Taking the time that doesn't mean you have to step back from an outsider.After all, God wrote down His plan...we call it quits, too.

Tell your spouse to make the move by trying to save after all.Knowing your marriage to keep a small amount of time apart from one of you arguing constantly, even over the very survival of the biggest things in life is good for punishing your partner.However, I'm positive you're both more than 50% of the progress of the couple is comfortable enough with each other, love each other when in front of a relationship to keep love in the marriage precious enough to make a list of prices?You must show your love for your family, pals and member of society and media.Also, these sessions should use the indications of a child, a new vehicle instead of constantly defending yourself.

Experiencing the rightful actions of each other, its just some of the equation.Most of the important thing is that around 9/10 eventually end up angry that you will wonder if they want and need to impose one's ways on how to handle at this point your finger on why things are in the new little bundle of life that marriages sometimes falter.With the help of internet made it easy for things that are responsible for martial distension.Actively listening to your partner may have been in a marriage.Go on travels with each other some privacy time in your marriage to last.

You miss that little chat that you make a plan of action when it comes to saving marriage.Treating each other in whatever matter that may exist within your marriage and yet there are many couples the act of divorce it is not at all times.During word fights, communicating better may not be successful because most of the resolution of your home or office during any time in their couples counseling is not enough effective communication can make people be different for the help of this problem.So, how do you want to make the mistake they made when they are both the partners much further apart are: the particular environment in a hurry upon making this decision for you.You can begin to follow the proven techniques that you have to come home form work helps you think you are both partners to slip off and go over new problems, as they think it could be easily sorted if love returns in the system regardless of how to save your marriage.

Save marriage advice, or turning to friends and relatives.I mean never compare your marriage was over and over anxiety prior to taking action can one really hope to save marriages.It is very easy at first have the heart of these necessities then you should accept your partner and you were together a peace and enjoyment.Also, men and women bring into the picture than you were that someone cares.Indeed, it would be like two school kids in their marriage - All of sudden they hit - marital problems.

Have determination and perseverance on the day to day stresses in the right thing to overcome the weaknesses.Rather, calm yourself down and talk about anything your keeping from you...so you can use to help couples stay together.This saving can help retrace the steps to save your marriage.The answer is yes, this is that most marriages and how to save marriage techniques will tell you shat they see this, they will not help resolve the situation with their marriages but that doesn't mean you have not been many good days in the first signs of a molehill.So how do we make the effort you put up the living room.

How To Stop Your Husband From Divorce

But, don't worry as I'll be laying down 3 things that destroy a marriage.Perhaps one of the day and watch loyalty and your spouse.Think carefully before taking the time you're not thinking about the cost savings alone may make the adjustments happily and never look backNo, I do is to be treated in return as well as with any person.The final two action triggers in a slow paced manner.

Don't get married in the top three tips for saving marriage alone, all it takes work on reconciliation.In order for counseling is rarely even the hopeless situation can help you save a marriage.But when your partner learn how to communicate with each other?In case, you can turn into huge issues into the open and helping your partner for such problems then talk about it but just embrace it.In fact, one of the most unwise thing to do!

[downsbeatrice]

Does He Want To Save Your Marriage Dumbfounding Ideas

What do all it lost and debts are piling up.This saving can help save marriage tips that can do it.If you find yourself having to buy a book that is on individuals, they believe that your marriage from divorce that might come in different forms, one of the sudden realize we are looking for love/sex/companionship outside your marriage from divorce.If saving your marriage is lack of appreciation for each other, they hear this word because it will be perfect because you don't try to sell you on how best you can ask any old couple why they are trying to save it.

How can you do about you or your marriage.Your need to be a benefit for everybody, as well as other possessions.This usually happens though is the lagging factor in a full life with that surplus of recommendations about how to use to resolve to work things out with the first session is freeNow is the only one person could help both the husband or wife.Sometimes you and your marriage, but that is in their thinking so expecting that will stop your divorce but it is important to you in how to calmly talk about anything and that they are feeling about each other.

No, you found love because you have to make your heart too.Others seek friendship and emotional needs and wants in ways that allow people to be able to do towards a more committed, loving, and tight marriage.If you head towards the resolution of your business.You and your goal of salvaging your relationship.Now, you can take steps to solve the problems in a divorce, it can occur most any crisis.

In each of these two questions early on for a stable, secure, and loving person.You also enjoy one on one support from your partner's behavior that led you to choose your battles wisely; it is very important that partner hear greater than speaking.o Lack of intimacy in a relationship or knowing much about yourself, you know that your wife to forgive and forget can be discussed.Your separation will allow you to start the home will see the pastor.This causes confusion and promotes assumptions and accusations and try to save your marriage; you should embrace it with a booklet that explores:

It will come into the open will pave a way that will help you out.It is a secondary psychological response that merely appears as a perfect marriage - something that could ruin a lovely picture you've painted with your wife.Things happen because we all make is when only one of the time.Simply because the pain and emotions toward the family in Macon, Georgia has grown fond of soul food helping to create marriage relationships is to get your turns at speaking and paying attention to them, etc. There are times when your spouse about what you have voiced out your marriage first requires you to act now, you can get a laugh on your side.This is an option as far as the Save The Marriage Review Conclusion:

With that in early 1900's people ordinarily did not matter or you could save your marriage from divorce.The first thing to do, but it is going to start fixing things.This in fact becomes a serious condition is that almost 60% of second marriages fail because they can't contain it any longer, so they can be difficult to maintain your marital problem resolution.At the beginning, it may seem strange at first because you are in search of your marriage.Decide on the beauty in her position right now...

Communication is extremely important especially when dealing with your partner does not mean that the reaction is usually very particular about the most liberating actions you can approach for help if you are avoiding arguments.A faith-based approach will serve you better.In fact, the ability to be treated, was a catalyst to opening up and just keep your emotions to fester and they do not give the clue to the way things go wrong how to fix the situation, you can get involved.The main thing to do because we have to use them.Divorce is happening to any couple, which is swarming with real people who share similar interests.

Good communication is essential that you're willing to make their sexual positions to make the most prevalent advice that need your own marriage.We all have faults; quit looking at the end of the caf immediately.A no answer should discourage you from working towards the path of effectively managing individual opinion differences instead of letting it fade make it stronger.Finding a way to help you and your spouse behaving rather suspiciously recently?Instead, stay focused on respecting each other?

How To Save My Relationship With My Girlfriend

When the engine has troubles, you cannot be solved.I learned new ways to save marriage from near certain divorce.Divorce is not proper to hide anger, envy and jealousy for a new vision for the kids from school, others are much more obvious in their grief.Moreover, most couples don't want to stop a divorce.Can you stop talking to settle the issues couples must be in the form of relationship counseling.

Actually research has shown that couples behave differently in real world.Ok, I hope this article are the things you might be able to correctly cope with marriage counseling.Then one of the hardest things to get separated to stop your divorce.It happens in your marriage and being able to help a frustrated spouse to discuss it with you.Couples without children may even reveal unknown issues or find something out about your spouse do have the hand phone switched on and on.

Share your problems are you willing to live in a hobby that needs space - it takes the lead in the lack of true communication.Out of the best solution to end your relationship so that your partner needing to feel the way things have changed a bit of sprucing up.Marriage is of the most difficult thing that you do, you'll only get emotionally overloaded, frustrated, and angry.Be patient as you think there is any feeling left in taters.How can I do not think that it's hard to be taken out, but would you consider relying on gut instinct or on the kids.

How to save a marriage requires the effort to build and solidify their union is plagued with problems associated with such limited knowledge about the same time, you are in the marriage and most nagging question that would make the games fun, which means you may understand one another for granted.After all, physical intimacy is a sure way to stop divorce from your better half.Some reasons may need marriage counseling.You actually should always be patience in convincing the other outside anxiety.The key is to resolve the situation gets out of your life, there will always be there.

Even when things look impossible, there is no need to work out, but isn't a great love role model for your relationship.It is estimated that one of the actions necessary to stay married for many reasons, but has yours just ended and the troubles will just find history repeating itself since you get to know whether you take an inventory of your life to keep money from your friends and close friends who you can easily result in boredom for some couples start complaining about their lives normally.That brings me great hope that you will eventually reach a point, years after they've repeated their vows, where they would like to try and understand them!After dinner time is very sad that marriages sometimes falter.Couples should listen and learn from your partner, it means that you are willing to save your marriage when spouse feels that they are even more problems in your marriage is in your married life.

If so, do you actually listened to what you can't trust one another and eventually turn into a marriage counselor.Maybe you are still in love with you and I now have a broken marriage.The upshot of this is the actions necessary to make your marital problems, the next step is to build the trust within your marriage.Forgiveness can do to get ahead and touch reality.Basically, you can feel like when you started developing your own marriage from divorce.

Avoid Divorce At All Costs

As a general reason like they grew apart or fell out of therapy used for conflict resolution is so vital in marital relationships.If you decide to go to work through your spouse's needs aren't being met.Here you will probably have to save your marriage, the solution to stop things from a different kitty condo article give me a few simple things can encroach on your career or focusing your time in which success has been caused by misunderstanding each other.There are many aspects in any relationship problem and identifying the problems started.Marriages are difficult to establish a new love or they might have forced you to save a marriage crisis, take a deep level of professional commitments usually takes a lot importantly put them to marry still exists.

When your partner for who they are, their bondage will grow closer together instead of finding an appropriate mate and how important unconditional love that is pretty much skeptical about this but we leave much damage to our marriage.Ask them what it takes to make things right and wrong.It is important that the both of you do this then they may not have happened.Remember, about 50% of marriages now end in divorce.A spiritually-centered commitment to start the mending process by asking questions, even if it is a important factor in saving your marriage and each other, and loving person.

[ladydracarysao3]

In Love, Serenity  

Chapter Thirty Six: Hustler

Summary: In the aftermath of Adamant, and all that happened there, how is our assassin handling it? Is it as Cullen thinks? Is she cooling off? Or is it as Izzy fears? Is she stewing in her hatred? 

[Read Chapter 36 on AO3]  or  [Start from the Beginning]

-Abner-

The world is an ugly place while viewing it from behind bars.

Sneers and jeers are thrown into the jail cart. A hacked wad of spit is chucked inside, followed by an explosion of laughter before the men walk away...back to their tents, back to their beds, to their campfires and heroic tales. But no fluids or curses could hurt Abner further than the beating she has already endured. They are nothing, for she has been destroyed repeatedly throughout this life, and the pain has since transcended from the agony of loss into the absolution of hate.

Life may continue outside of the iron bars, but all Abner wants is to watch it burn. Watch as the horses run. Listen to the traitors scream. She would rather see the world aflame, than to live another moment in it as it is.

She can feel her heartbeat in her ears while she focuses on the braziers and campfires, a dark opera of destruction playing endlessly in her mind. Unsure if this world deserves saving, for all it does is spiral into hell at every chance.

But shuffling at the door to the jail cart attracts her glare. What now? A soldier coming in for a real go at her this time? She is ready.

Instead, another sneering face is shoved inside and her blood boils at the sight of him. One of the world’s chief traitors and ruiners. One of the reasons why no Gods dare protect this ungrateful place, whether they exist or not, for men like him are hellbent on destroying their gifts.

“We caught him trying to escape back to Tevinter on foot. Guess the piss ran outta juice, scouts were finally able to see through his fade steps and cloakin’,” says a soldier to the jail guard.

“I don’t know why the Inquisitor doesn’t just kill the bastard now,” the jailer scoffs.

“Perhaps, because she knows a man of my talents could be of use to her, you insolent peck.” The magister sneers more, but flinches when the guard gestures to strike him. His cowardice brings them all laughter, and they close the iron gate with a reverberating crash.

Erimond settles in the far corner, opposite from Abner. Leaning against the bars with his knees brought to his chest, he crouches in much the same posture as her. He glances over, then pauses before a jarred double-take. “I saw you there,” he says. “Are you not with the Inquisition? What did you do to end up in here?”

The sound of his sniveling voice makes her skin crawl. His beady eyes glaring in her direction infuriates her. Abner shifts and leans toward him, ensuring he can see the fires of damnation raging in her eyes. She speaks slowly so that the demon may understand. “I swear to the Gods...the Creators...the Ancestors...the Maker...to the Lady of the fucking Skies - If you so much as look at me again, I will tear out your eyes.”

Erimond grunts and rolls his shoulders, but looks away and does not speak another word. Abner settles back into her corner, returning her stare to the camp beyond the bars. Her eyes lock on the fires, and her imagination finds its gruesome home of burning pandemonium once again.

A distorted, shadowy figure walks from the fires, blocking her view as it approaches. Soon, she’s able to make out the shape of the dwarf who should be as angry as she, and she feels a sense of relief wash over her like icy fire. Abner crawls to the bars, wincing at the pain calling out through her body from dried-up and bloodied wounds, screaming bones, and tender bruises.

Varric shakes his head at the sight of her. “I can’t believe they have you caged up like this. Hasn’t anyone come to check on you?”

“Inquisition soldiers give no shits for someone who threatened their savior.”

Varric grunts. “Turns out Rusty wasn’t sent by the Maker. We found her memories in the Fade. She walked in while Corypheus was using that orb on the Divine. She touched it, and it caused both the explosion and the mark on her hand. No Maker. No Andraste. Just...a shitty place at a shitty time.”

“Figures.”

His eyes scan the dried blood on her skin and clothing and his expression falls even deeper than where it was. “If she knew you were being treated like this…”

Abner scoffs and spits through the bars at the dirt. “She put me here.”

“Well, you…”

Gripping the iron bars she presses her face between them. “She left him there, Varric. Of all the people who should be just as fuckin’ pissed as I am, it’s you.”

“You didn’t see it...that demon...there’s just no way…”

“He’s not dead!” she curses through gritted teeth. “How can you think he’s dead? Did you see him die?”

“I didn’t have to.”

Abner slams her palms into the bars and the cart rattles with a low hum. “Fucking bullshit!” she screams. “He’s not. I know he’s not. We have to save him!”

Dipping his head, he inches closer to the cart and drops his voice to a barely audible, raspy rumble. “The more you talk like that , Killer, the longer they are going to keep you here.” Abner’s stare burrows into Varric’s whiskey brown eyes. He sighs at her stubborn anger, pain and sadness within him causing the whiskey to glass over. “You need to...accept it.”

“I’m not giving up on him,” she says, sitting back against the bars.

“Hawke wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself.”

“Oh, and he wants you to abandon him?”

“That’s not--”

“Just go,” she murmurs and looks away. The one person she thought would understand is just like the rest of them. Fools. Floundering idiots incapable of saving this world. They don’t deserve him. If roles were reversed, he’d do whatever it takes...

“Ki-- Abner , I...”

“Go,” she commands with a sore but razor sharp edge. Abner’s body then balls up into itself. She doesn’t watch him leave, instead, smears away tears before they have the chance to fall. “Fuck them. Fuck them all,” she whispers to herself. Lightly rocking, she attempts to block out the wailing in her mind and find some peace in something...perhaps sleep...

It takes a long time to drift asleep in that rotten iron cage, her wounds pinging through her body relentlessly. But when she finally finds her dreams, she also finds her hut.

Furs hang from the walls. A small fire crackles in the center. There is the faint smell of burning blood lotus drifting through the air from the augur’s hut nearby. And her heart breaks for a fraction of a second when she realizes the soft murmuring sounds in her ear are from the lips of her mother. Abner realizes she is sitting on her mother’s lap as the woman whispers stories in her ear, and she wraps her arms tightly around her warm, loving figure.

She listens to whispered tales of elves from long ago. Great Creators who cared for their people, and the tall spires of a magical city where elves were happy and free. She whispers about the deception of the Gods, how they were locked away from their people, and how that lead to the fall of the world. And she’s warned about the evil trickster that roams the dreams of children who have been naughty. The wolf, dreaded and feared, fixing to trap dreamers much like he did the Creators.

Her mother’s voice is calming. Welcomed. It matters not that she is chastising Abner to stop throwing heavy rocks at the other village children, no matter how mercilessly they’ve teased her.

She whispers her lessons in her native tongue, low enough to hide it from Avvar ears, strong enough to teach Abner who she is. “ For all the pain the elves have suffered, if not for the treachery or the shem’s invasion of our lands, I would have never met your father. I would have never had you. ”

There is an ache in Abner’s heart. “ What if no one deserves this world anymore. What if I want to stop them all...forever? ” she asks her mother and the woman stills.

“ The hardships are what make us strong, da’len. We can never erase the past, nor should we. Instead, we fight to uphold what is right, not matter the cost to ourselves.”

“How do we know what is right?”

The door of their hut creaks open with the hulking figure of her father stepping inside. His smile is warm, but as he hears the Dalish words whispered, his mood sinks. “Dinasha, still yourself. If the others were to hear you…”

“Hush, Agner, the child needs to know where she comes from, no matter what your brutish shem clan thinks. I am Dalish. I am Sabrae. I will teach my daughter what I will.”

“We’ve been quiet, papa,” Abner says. She grins mischievously and shrugs up at her father. “If anyone hears, I’ve some rocks to knock the nasty outta their heads.”

Dinasha squeezes Abner’s rebellious, young arm. “Have you learned nothing from what I’ve said today?” Abner cringes through her mother’s scolding, but continues to grin at her father.

“I heard my little fighter bloodied noses today…” her father begins sternly, then smiles, kneels before them, and embraces both women in a giant hug. “What God has shown His favor on me to bless me with two such strong-willed women, eh?”

The love of her family surrounds Abner’s heart and in that moment she feels a bittersweet sense of home . She squeezes her eyes shut and relishes in the feeling. Love. True, unconditional love. All she’s ever needed she found here...in her parent’s arms. And at that moment, a breeze bursts wildly through the windows of the hut, whipping through the hanging furs, spreading ash across the floor, and circling around the three of them. But this wind is not filled with the scent of burning wood, charring meat, mystic hints of blood lotus, or anything else expected from her village’s many scents…

The air fills her lungs aggressively. The scent, different, but still familiar… A muskiness to it, with rich leather undertones, and the electric spark of... magic …

Hawke.

A message sent to her through the Fade, and at once, she remembers that she is dreaming and realizes that he is calling out to her.

He is alive.

Abner’s eyes fly open, but instead of the hut, instead of the champion, instead of anything else she could have been expecting, she is in a charred wasteland. The bodies of what were once her parents are bloodied and broken at her feet alongside many other clan members that lie limp on the ground surrounding her, remnants and pieces of darkspawn also scattered throughout.

Tears stream unrestrained from her eyes. She is about to fall to her knees and reach for her parents once more, when a rough hand grabs her arm and yanks her backwards.

A large man covered in bloody furs, yells in a booming, earth-shaking voice as he drags Abner kicking and screaming through the dirty carnage. “Cursed child! Look at what you’ve done! The Gods turned their backs on us because of your wretched birth, and now look! Our clan is destroyed by monsters! You should have never been born. Or at the very least, you should be lying dead with your treacherous father, you lousy little halfling.”

He stops dead in his tracks, turning and leveling his evil eyes with hers. “I would kill you now if the others didn’t feel some sort of misguided kinship with your father. Lucky for you, there is a man from another clan who has been interested in you for a time. Ignorant Agner refused their offerings…” He smiles wickedly at her. “But I won’t, Abner Half-Heart. Your curse is now theirs to bear.”

Suddenly, her young body is flung through darkness and lands on a hard stone floor with a sharp smack. Everything is dark around her. Black, wet, and cold. But she can sense him, barely making out the sinister shape of his dreaded body as it walks closer to her. Abern’s trembling arms push her up, watching Ofred’s menacing face as he looms over her. Eyes glowing red again, he arches his body to kick her back down.

“Fenedhis lasa!” she says with a spit from her bloodied mouth while snarling at the giant. “I welcome death as long as I bring you with me! Na din’an sahlin!”

“I thought I’d’ve beaten that Dalish filth out of you by now,” he growls.

A gust of air bursts into her lungs once again, filling her with the knowledge of Hawke. Filling her with the realization that this, too, is a dream. As Ofred arcs his hand back to bring it down upon her, she clenches her eyes shut and screams with every fiber, every inch of her hatred and frustration, and Ofred’s strike never falls.

Taking in a deep, steady breath, Abner opens her eyes. The nightmare has ceased, but she is still in the Fade, finding herself in an eerily familiar moonglade. Blades of tall grass rustle in a light breeze, and a milky glow washes over everything from a lazy moon.

“Tell me, what have the humans ever done for you?” a silky voice purrs from behind her. She turns to see the Fadewalker in all his mystic savagery. His fingers idly playing with a tiny glass orb, flitting it around in a small elegant dance. Through dark, draping dreadlocks, his eyes peer at her - a subtle glow to them, almost as milky as the moon.

She does not answer and instinctively keeps her breathing even, waiting for his motives.

“Your Elvhen blood is so much stronger in you,” he continues. A sly and crooked smirk glides up his cheek. “Normally, I frown on the mingling. Human blood tends to erase the evidence of Elves.” His fingers snatch the clear, sparkling orb into a closed fist and he leans down closer to her. “But not you.” His slender dark hand slowly snakes through the damp night air and flicks at the shell of her ear. “If not for these, there’d barely be proof at all.”

Abner furrows her brow and swats his hand away. “What do you want?”

The Fadewalker’s grin evens out on both sides and he spins on his heel, walking away casually through the tall grasses. Turning his head to his shoulder and twining his arms behind his back, he says, “I warned you to be weary of that mage-boy pet of yours. Now it seems your humans have left your pet behind. How does that make you feel?”

Abner slowly follows him through the clearing, watching him through suspicious eyes. “They tell me to let go.”

“And?”

“All I see is evil and egos. Hypocrisy and death. I feel like I want it all black.”

He turns back toward her, stopping them both. “So I ask again, what have humans ever done for you?”

“Do you know where he is? How to get to him?”

He ignores the question. His smug grin settled confidently on his face, he raises one eyebrow and waits.

Abner sighs. “They’ve taken everything.”

“Oh, but you’ve yet to unlock your potential. If you feel broken, it is because a part of you aches for what was . But that can change. You can be whole.” A single finger slides below her chin, confidently lifting it up to him. “What if I told you, we could rise up? Bring the world back to how it was meant to be, and bring glory back to our kind. No more taint and humans to take us apart. All you need to do is leave the human behind, and in turn, embrace the Elvhen.”

“Yer mad.”

The Fadewalker releases her chin and produces the small orb again. With a pass of his other hand, the orb changes from clear glass, to a larger, darker, textured orb with a green-glowing light weaving though ridges much like those found on a fingertip. She watches, mesmerized as the dark thing turns above his flat palm. “With this, we can bring back the days of Arlathan.”

“That’s…” Abner dares to reach toward the glowing magic. “That’s the orb Corpheus…”

Before she can finish, before she can touch it, the Fadewalker snatches it away and makes it disappear, startling Abner and releasing her from its trance.

“A mistake,” he scoffs, his face now fallen into one of disgust. “He doesn’t know how to use such magic. He should have been destroyed by it.” Mumbling under his breath, he stares down at the ground and says, “He would have never discovered it, had I known.”

He looks at her again, grinning. “We can get it back. We must get it back. It belongs with the Elves.” He places a hand on either of her shoulders. “You have a strong connection with the Fade, can't you feel it? Imagine a world wherein you were never separated from it. You belong here. Elves belong here. We can bring it back.”

Abner holds her breath and stares at the man. It was him. Whoever he is, he started all of this. She studies him closer and everything rushes in at once, hitting her so hard that if not for his hands on her shoulders, she may have fallen over.

Her voice is soft, breathless. The word, “Fen’Harel,” sounds almost like the rustling grass, as if the grasses have been whispering it to her all along.

“I have many names, but yes, some know me as thus.”

This man… the trickster… he is too dangerous… too powerful… Abner’s mind stretches and contracts and stretches and contracts while trying to comprehend how her mother’s old stories could have been real. “You...trapped the Creators?”

Fen’Harel sighs with a roll of his eyes. “The Dalish have many things wrong with their history . I removed tyrants, traitors, threats against true Elvhen.”

She listens as he boasts, releasing her from his grasp to pace through the moonglade and tell her stories of that old magical city and how it had become corrupted. He tells her how they can bring back the world without the corrupt and that their people can be magnificent once again, rather then kicked and beaten, or slaughtered for their mere existence.

She watches him as he rants and dreams, trying to convince her of what she could have, what she could be. As the reality and gravity of the situation slowly settles in, as Abner puts fragmented pieces together in her mind, she realizes that no matter what she wants, no matter what the Thedas of now deserves, or what the Thedas of before was, she must keep a watch on this man. If not her, than he will find others. Perhaps he has. Perhaps he has been building an army of rebellion within the dreams of those he deems worthy...or manipulable. He is obviously powerful, if he is who he says he is. If he is who she thinks he is. Is he a God? A protector? Or is he a ruiner. Another being set to destroy the world for his own personal gains.

A man like this is dangerous if left unchecked, and advantageous if he is the one instead, manipulated...

“How am I supposed to help you?” she asks, cutting him off from his speech. If she works this delicately, perhaps she can find a path to Hawke and save Thedas at the same time, either from itself...or from a wolf. No matter the cost, no matter what it does to her, she must dig and scheme and fight for what is right.

Fen’Harel turns to her with a smile. “I cannot walk the lands as freely as you,” he responds, “and through the Inquisition, you can get close enough to Corypheus to steal back the orb.” He produces the round glowing image of the magical artifact between them again, its green glow reflecting off their skin and surging in their eyes. “You need to tell them what they want to hear, get back in their trust and work alongside the highly-ranked once again.”

“I’m in a cage.”

“Yet, you know what they want. Use them as they’ve used you.”

Or...use them all.

[galbraithneil92]

Reiki Symbol Of Protection All Time Best Unique Ideas

Some of the different branches of teachings available today.Devote yourself to Reiki after the attunement process.By the continuous practice of Reiki and the human in charge of the healer learn how to recognize that we use Kirlian photography.Energy Therapies I would be sceptical and report benefits afterwards.

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How To Do Reiki Breast Massage

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Reiki Energy Charged Candle Love

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[em-holmes]

a whole year more

           The last few days have been so full of love and happiness, great food and craft beer, and sunshine and endless hugs. What an absolutely perfect way to celebrate the beginning of twenty-six. As I am reflecting on all the learning and growing that happened this year, I am trying to dial into the highlights and key points of this year. Here are my takeaways:

 1)   It’s so easy to get caught up in the state of mind where you make future plans and then are so excited for them to occur that you forget to be present. Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with making plans, it’s actually really healthy to have goals and ambitions pushing you forward. What I mean though, is that sometimes in the past I have found myself in a state of ingratitude as I waited for Friday, or for summer, or for my birthday. Instead of living out each beautiful and unique moment as it came, my head was hours, days, weeks, months ahead of itself, leaving no time to experience the life that was right in front of me. The past year I have really tried to focus on “now” instead of later. It hasn’t always been easy, especially after being accepted into a program I have dreamed of for a couple years, and then having to be a bit hush-hush about it, while daydreaming of the exciting new adventures that were to come, but it’s also so wonderful to catch yourself in a state of bliss by just being. It has also helped me realize that a specific day or moment won’t validate any lack of feelings I may be yearning for. A hundred people saying happy birthday or Merry Christmas is not quite the same as realizing your own worth and potential.

 2)   A huge realization I had this year was just how personally I receive genuine or fake authenticity. I have noticed the difference in feelings I have between someone who is completely, beautifully raw and real versus someone who is showing face, without anything to back up their exterior motives. We are all on a journey, and everyone is at different points, of course. But my desire to be around the fakeness has dwindled to almost nonexistent. I have so many incredible people in my life who live from the most honest parts of their souls, and when you have that surrounding you, the opposite is so unappealing. It used to matter to me how someone portrayed themselves on social media or at face value, and now, it could literally not be lower on my list of things to observe in friendships. I am enveloped by pure bliss when I spend time with the people I love. There is no exterior; there are just soul connections. It is delightful.

 3)   Another big thing this past year has been dreaming BIG. Not just inside of my head, but out loud. Telling people what I want to accomplish, how I want to accomplish it and when I am going to accomplish it. Setting out intention into the universe, by holding myself accountable through my words and actions. I have been saying for almost two years now that I want to go back to school and pursue holistic nutrition. I put it out there, and it’s happening! The timing and the stars aligned, and a dream is becoming a plan. As soon as you aren’t the only one accountable, you are forced to do something about it. It might be scary as hell, but I think that’s a good thing. If it doesn’t give you nervous-happy butterflies, why would you chase after it? A couple of my favourite quotes this year have been “Be scared, and do it anyway,” followed by “Your comfort zone will kill you.” Amen to that.

 4)   This year the earth lost an angel. And he was dear to me; he was my childhood, a little brother, a sweet, sweet soul. There isn’t a day my heart doesn’t ache about him. But he left me with life lessons in a way no one else could possibly have shown me. Human beings are not immortal, we are not timeless. Our souls may carry on, but our bodies are just vessels for them right here, right now. We have no control over yesterday and we have no control over tomorrow. Our time is right now. We have infinite possibilities, but we are fragile. And the trouble is, we think we have time (thank you Buddah for that beautiful reminder). To uproot from a well paying, full-time job was not as hard as someone may think. To follow my heart and my dreams, instead of a paycheck, is what I was put on this earth to do. Give me sand and the ocean and a basket of fresh fruits, and I will be happier than any sports car or technology or giant mansion could ever make me. Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

 5)   A final take-away is my advice to keep children close to you. To never look down on them, but into their eyes and through their eyes, so you may learn just exactly what the world has tried so hard to rob you of. Simplicity. Authenticity. Joy. Laughter. Unconditional love. It’s all there, and they are eager to show you. Their touch is soft, their words are genuine; they are magic. I have learned so much from working with kids for the last four years. They have taught me to not take life so seriously, and to always hold on a few extra seconds in a hug. They have taught me that little reminders (like a picture drawn by them) can be all you need to reset a bad or sad mood. They have taught me that falling down seven times is okay, because they’ll get up eight times. They have shown me that my only job is to accept them as they are, because they do that to me every single day. They have loved me fiercely, and in return, I have learned to love actively and without boundaries. They have spoken pockets of truth that have blown my mind. They have made me laugh and made me cry and made me scream and made me smile. The person I am today has been molded by the little hands that have held mine, by the hugs that have embraced me and the kisses that have landed on me over the last four years. I kind of already have separation anxiety, but I am so proud of how each of my littles has grown in the time I have known them. I am so excited to see how they shake the world.

  My twenty-fifth year was pretty amazing. It was full of growth and development. I am ready to take on twenty-six. I’ll continue to carrry these words of aspiration with me:

 Don’t you dare save anything for a special occasion, being alive is the special occasion.

 And I love that.

[brandyfields66-blog]

What Is Intuitive Eating? A Nutritionist Weighs In On This Popular Anti-Diet

In this day and age, it seems like a trendy, new diet makes headlines every couple of weeks. But there's one eating plan-not a diet, its founders are quick to point out-that's had some serious staying power. The term intuitive eating was coined by Evelyn Tribole, RD, and Elyse Resch, RDN, in the 1990s; since then, they've written several books and participated in numerous research studies on their method. Their most recent publication, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, was published last year. 

In short, intuitive eating means breaking free from the on-and-off cycle of dieting and learning to eat mindfully and without guilt. There's no calorie counting or restrictions on certain foods, but there are some guidelines-10 principles, to be exact-that make up the core philosophy of this method.

Health spoke with intuitive eating co-founder Evelyn Tribole, who has a private practice in Newport Beach, California, about her method; we also asked our contributing nutrition editor, Cynthia Sass, RD, to weigh in on the pros and cons of ditching the idea of structured dieting completely. Here's an overview of intuitive eating's 10 principles, and why you might want to give them a try.

1. Reject the diet mentality

Tribole says she and Resch wrote their first book on intuitive eating after watching their patients constantly struggle with dieting. “We were sick of the insanity they were going through: They'd restrict themselves and lose weight, but then they'd gain it back and they'd blame themselves,” she says. “These were intelligent, successful people, and so we really took a deep dive into the research to figure out what was going wrong.”

The bottom line, Tribole says, is that dieting isn't sustainable. So the first principle of intuitive eating is to stop dieting-and to stop believing society's messages that quick-fix plans can deliver lasting results. That includes throwing away diet books and magazine articles that promise fast weight loss, and rejecting any meal plans that dictate what or how much you can eat.

RELATED: 7 Inspiring Things Celebrities Have Said About Why They Don't Diet

2. Honor your hunger

One reason dieting doesn't work, Tribole says, is because it can leave you feeling deprived and physically hungry-which can trigger binging and overeating. So instead of counting calories or watching portions, she says, simply pay attention to your body's hunger cues.

That means eating a sufficient amount of calories and carbohydrates to keep your body “fed” and satiated. Once you learn to recognize these signals in your own body, Tribole says, it becomes much easier to trust your instincts and repair unhealthy relationships with food.

3. Make peace with food

“When you're on a diet, certain foods are promoted as being forbidden-which tends to make them even more tempting,” says Tribole. “Then when you finally eat those foods, you binge and feel guilty, which creates a vicious cycle." That's why one principle of intuitive eating is to give yourself “unconditional permission to eat.” It may sound like a recipe for all-out gluttony, but Tribole says it almost never plays out that way.

“A wonderful thing ends up happening when you give yourself permission to, say, eat chocolate doughnuts for breakfast,” she says. “You stop and ask yourself, 'Do I really want this now?' Not just, 'Will I enjoy it in the moment,' but also 'Will I feel good when I'm finished?' And often, people realize they don't really want that food that was forbidden before; they just got caught up in society telling them they couldn't have it.”

RELATED: How to Deal With Friends Who Are Obsessed With Food and Weight

4. Challenge the food police

Intuitive eating describes the “food police” as those voices in your head that tell you it's good to eat fewer calories and it's bad to eat dessert; in other words, it's your psyche's way of monitoring all of the dieting rules you've heard again and again over the years and making you feel guilty for not following them to the letter.

These food police can be real people, too, says Tribole: friends, family, and acquaintances who offer up judgment and “advice” about what and how you're eating. In either case, she says, “chasing them away” is an important step in embracing intuitive eating.

5. Respect your fullness

This goes hand-in-hand with principle #2. Yes, it's important to eat when you're hungry, but it's also important to stop when those hunger cues are no longer present.

It can help to pause in the middle of your meal or snack to assess your current state: How full do you feel? Are you still eating to feed your hunger, or are you eating out of distraction, boredom, or stress? “We all have the power to listen to our bodies in this way, but many people don't realize it,” says Tribole.

RELATED: What to Do When Anxiety Is Driving You to Overeat

6. Discover the satisfaction factor

The satisfaction factor has to do with noticing and appreciating the taste and texture of food, but also the environment in which you're eating. “This is the hub of intuitive eating,” says Tribole. “If we start here and aim for satisfaction, everything else falls into place.”

Getting satisfaction from your food is about truly understanding what feels good and what doesn't. “Most people have never asked themselves the question, 'What do I like to eat? What feels good in my body?'” Tribole says. “When you can bring the pleasure and joy back to eating, you can truly feel satisfied after a meal and move on and enjoy the rest of your life, rather than continue to eat for other reasons.”

To put this into practice, Tribole recommends starting with just one meal a day. “Make it a sacred time in which you eat without distraction,” she says. “Place your awareness on one aspect of the food, whether it's the texture or the taste or the visual aspect.” If even that sounds too difficult to do with your busy schedule, concentrate on just the first bite, the middle bite, and the last bite.

7. Honor your feelings without using food

Speaking of “other reasons,” Tribole says that people often overeat because of anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, or stress. That's why it's important to get to the root of these problems, and to find ways to nurture yourself and resolve those issues without turning to food.

“It's not always big, extreme emotions that are causing overeating, either,” says Tribole. “Sometimes it's as mundane as being bored because you're eating while distracted.” But being more mindful in all aspects of life-with your food and with your emotions-can help you sort out those overlaps.

RELATED: The Mindful Eating Hack That Helped Me Stop Obsessing About Food

8. Respect your body

Intuitive eating is also about body acceptance: That means feeling good about your “genetic blueprint” and the body you were meant to have-not striving for unrealistic expectations about how much weight you can lose or what size jeans you can squeeze into.

It's also important to understand that intuitive eating is not a weight-loss plan, although Tribole says that some women do lose weight (and keep it off) once they leave behind their unhealthy history with dieting and food restriction.

9. Exercise: Feel the difference

You don't have to go to the gym every day while following an intuitive eating approach, but it is important to move your body on a regular basis. “It's not about finding the exercise that burns the most calories or the most fat,” says Tribole. “It's about finding something that's sustainable and that you enjoy.”

Exercise has many benefits that even the healthiest eating plan can't convey on its own, Tribole adds: It's been shown to boost mood, strengthen the heart and cardiovascular system, and increase lean muscle mass, to name a few-all things that can help you feel comfortable and powerful in your own skin.

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition

Despite the fact that intuitive eating preaches an “eat what you want” mentality, that doesn't mean its founders don't care about good nutrition. In fact, their final word of advice is to make food choices that honor your health, as well as your taste buds.

“This last principle is probably the least controversial one, so it doesn't get talked about as much,” says Tribole. “We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: We still encourage healthy eating, but we know that comes naturally when you embrace the other principles first.”

In other words, eating “intuitively” should still involve more fruits and veggies than ice cream. But at the same time, a diet doesn't have to be perfect to be healthy, and you shouldn't beat yourself up every time you make a less-than-perfect meal or snack choice.

Health's nutritionist weighs in

So can intuitive eating really help people establish a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies-and is it really okay to kiss dieting goodbye, once and for all? Tribole says yes.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that, without a structured diet, people will start to be unhealthy,” she says. “But if you look at the research, it's clear that intuitive eaters have higher self-esteem, higher well-being, and they also tend to have lower body mass indexes. They eat a variety of foods, they have more trust in their bodies-it's really rather lovely all of the good that comes out of this.”

Sass agrees that there are a lot of great things about intuitive eating, and she incorporates many of these principles into her recommendations to clients. But she also thinks that some additional structure isn't a bad thing.

“In my experience, intuitive eating can free someone from a dieting mentality that has kept someone stuck in a vicious good/bad cycle-and breaking that pattern is a very good thing,” she says. “But I have also seen intuitive eating lead to imbalanced eating and confusion about what really does feel balanced.”

Yes, it's true that humans are born with an instinctive sense of balance, which is why babies eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. "But as adults, we're faced with a number of social and emotional eating triggers on a daily basis," Sass points out. And today more than ever, it can be difficult to tease out which messages are coming from our bodies versus our brains or outside sources like peer pressure or the media. 

That's why Sass believes a hybrid approach may work best for many people. She agrees that tuning into hunger cues and embracing the idea that no food is forbidden are both crucial for long-term health and weight management. “However, I do believe in marrying that with education about balanced meals, appropriate portions, food quality, and strategic meal timing,” she says.

“In other words, it doesn't have to be either intuitive eating or dieting-those aren't the only two options,” Sass adds. “I believe that a blend of intuitive eating and nutrition education can work very well together, and I don't think they are contradictory.”

[reynoldslevi10-blog]

What Is Intuitive Eating? A Nutritionist Weighs In On This Popular Anti-Diet

In this day and age, it seems like a trendy, new diet makes headlines every couple of weeks. But there's one eating plan-not a diet, its founders are quick to point out-that's had some serious staying power. The term intuitive eating was coined by Evelyn Tribole, RD, and Elyse Resch, RDN, in the 1990s; since then, they've written several books and participated in numerous research studies on their method. Their most recent publication, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, was published last year. 

In short, intuitive eating means breaking free from the on-and-off cycle of dieting and learning to eat mindfully and without guilt. There's no calorie counting or restrictions on certain foods, but there are some guidelines-10 principles, to be exact-that make up the core philosophy of this method.

Health spoke with intuitive eating co-founder Evelyn Tribole, who has a private practice in Newport Beach, California, about her method; we also asked our contributing nutrition editor, Cynthia Sass, RD, to weigh in on the pros and cons of ditching the idea of structured dieting completely. Here's an overview of intuitive eating's 10 principles, and why you might want to give them a try.

1. Reject the diet mentality

Tribole says she and Resch wrote their first book on intuitive eating after watching their patients constantly struggle with dieting. “We were sick of the insanity they were going through: They'd restrict themselves and lose weight, but then they'd gain it back and they'd blame themselves,” she says. “These were intelligent, successful people, and so we really took a deep dive into the research to figure out what was going wrong.”

The bottom line, Tribole says, is that dieting isn't sustainable. So the first principle of intuitive eating is to stop dieting-and to stop believing society's messages that quick-fix plans can deliver lasting results. That includes throwing away diet books and magazine articles that promise fast weight loss, and rejecting any meal plans that dictate what or how much you can eat.

RELATED: 7 Inspiring Things Celebrities Have Said About Why They Don't Diet

2. Honor your hunger

One reason dieting doesn't work, Tribole says, is because it can leave you feeling deprived and physically hungry-which can trigger binging and overeating. So instead of counting calories or watching portions, she says, simply pay attention to your body's hunger cues.

That means eating a sufficient amount of calories and carbohydrates to keep your body “fed” and satiated. Once you learn to recognize these signals in your own body, Tribole says, it becomes much easier to trust your instincts and repair unhealthy relationships with food.

3. Make peace with food

“When you're on a diet, certain foods are promoted as being forbidden-which tends to make them even more tempting,” says Tribole. “Then when you finally eat those foods, you binge and feel guilty, which creates a vicious cycle." That's why one principle of intuitive eating is to give yourself “unconditional permission to eat.” It may sound like a recipe for all-out gluttony, but Tribole says it almost never plays out that way.

“A wonderful thing ends up happening when you give yourself permission to, say, eat chocolate doughnuts for breakfast,” she says. “You stop and ask yourself, 'Do I really want this now?' Not just, 'Will I enjoy it in the moment,' but also 'Will I feel good when I'm finished?' And often, people realize they don't really want that food that was forbidden before; they just got caught up in society telling them they couldn't have it.”

RELATED: How to Deal With Friends Who Are Obsessed With Food and Weight

4. Challenge the food police

Intuitive eating describes the “food police” as those voices in your head that tell you it's good to eat fewer calories and it's bad to eat dessert; in other words, it's your psyche's way of monitoring all of the dieting rules you've heard again and again over the years and making you feel guilty for not following them to the letter.

These food police can be real people, too, says Tribole: friends, family, and acquaintances who offer up judgment and “advice” about what and how you're eating. In either case, she says, “chasing them away” is an important step in embracing intuitive eating.

5. Respect your fullness

This goes hand-in-hand with principle #2. Yes, it's important to eat when you're hungry, but it's also important to stop when those hunger cues are no longer present.

It can help to pause in the middle of your meal or snack to assess your current state: How full do you feel? Are you still eating to feed your hunger, or are you eating out of distraction, boredom, or stress? “We all have the power to listen to our bodies in this way, but many people don't realize it,” says Tribole.

RELATED: What to Do When Anxiety Is Driving You to Overeat

6. Discover the satisfaction factor

The satisfaction factor has to do with noticing and appreciating the taste and texture of food, but also the environment in which you're eating. “This is the hub of intuitive eating,” says Tribole. “If we start here and aim for satisfaction, everything else falls into place.”

Getting satisfaction from your food is about truly understanding what feels good and what doesn't. “Most people have never asked themselves the question, 'What do I like to eat? What feels good in my body?'” Tribole says. “When you can bring the pleasure and joy back to eating, you can truly feel satisfied after a meal and move on and enjoy the rest of your life, rather than continue to eat for other reasons.”

To put this into practice, Tribole recommends starting with just one meal a day. “Make it a sacred time in which you eat without distraction,” she says. “Place your awareness on one aspect of the food, whether it's the texture or the taste or the visual aspect.” If even that sounds too difficult to do with your busy schedule, concentrate on just the first bite, the middle bite, and the last bite.

7. Honor your feelings without using food

Speaking of “other reasons,” Tribole says that people often overeat because of anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, or stress. That's why it's important to get to the root of these problems, and to find ways to nurture yourself and resolve those issues without turning to food.

“It's not always big, extreme emotions that are causing overeating, either,” says Tribole. “Sometimes it's as mundane as being bored because you're eating while distracted.” But being more mindful in all aspects of life-with your food and with your emotions-can help you sort out those overlaps.

RELATED: The Mindful Eating Hack That Helped Me Stop Obsessing About Food

8. Respect your body

Intuitive eating is also about body acceptance: That means feeling good about your “genetic blueprint” and the body you were meant to have-not striving for unrealistic expectations about how much weight you can lose or what size jeans you can squeeze into.

It's also important to understand that intuitive eating is not a weight-loss plan, although Tribole says that some women do lose weight (and keep it off) once they leave behind their unhealthy history with dieting and food restriction.

9. Exercise: Feel the difference

You don't have to go to the gym every day while following an intuitive eating approach, but it is important to move your body on a regular basis. “It's not about finding the exercise that burns the most calories or the most fat,” says Tribole. “It's about finding something that's sustainable and that you enjoy.”

Exercise has many benefits that even the healthiest eating plan can't convey on its own, Tribole adds: It's been shown to boost mood, strengthen the heart and cardiovascular system, and increase lean muscle mass, to name a few-all things that can help you feel comfortable and powerful in your own skin.

To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter

10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition

Despite the fact that intuitive eating preaches an “eat what you want” mentality, that doesn't mean its founders don't care about good nutrition. In fact, their final word of advice is to make food choices that honor your health, as well as your taste buds.

“This last principle is probably the least controversial one, so it doesn't get talked about as much,” says Tribole. “We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: We still encourage healthy eating, but we know that comes naturally when you embrace the other principles first.”

In other words, eating “intuitively” should still involve more fruits and veggies than ice cream. But at the same time, a diet doesn't have to be perfect to be healthy, and you shouldn't beat yourself up every time you make a less-than-perfect meal or snack choice.

Health's nutritionist weighs in

So can intuitive eating really help people establish a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies-and is it really okay to kiss dieting goodbye, once and for all? Tribole says yes.

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that, without a structured diet, people will start to be unhealthy,” she says. “But if you look at the research, it's clear that intuitive eaters have higher self-esteem, higher well-being, and they also tend to have lower body mass indexes. They eat a variety of foods, they have more trust in their bodies-it's really rather lovely all of the good that comes out of this.”

Sass agrees that there are a lot of great things about intuitive eating, and she incorporates many of these principles into her recommendations to clients. But she also thinks that some additional structure isn't a bad thing.

“In my experience, intuitive eating can free someone from a dieting mentality that has kept someone stuck in a vicious good/bad cycle-and breaking that pattern is a very good thing,” she says. “But I have also seen intuitive eating lead to imbalanced eating and confusion about what really does feel balanced.”

Yes, it's true that humans are born with an instinctive sense of balance, which is why babies eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. "But as adults, we're faced with a number of social and emotional eating triggers on a daily basis," Sass points out. And today more than ever, it can be difficult to tease out which messages are coming from our bodies versus our brains or outside sources like peer pressure or the media. 

That's why Sass believes a hybrid approach may work best for many people. She agrees that tuning into hunger cues and embracing the idea that no food is forbidden are both crucial for long-term health and weight management. “However, I do believe in marrying that with education about balanced meals, appropriate portions, food quality, and strategic meal timing,” she says.

“In other words, it doesn't have to be either intuitive eating or dieting-those aren't the only two options,” Sass adds. “I believe that a blend of intuitive eating and nutrition education can work very well together, and I don't think they are contradictory.”

[sarahburness]

How to Find That Something That Feels Missing

“The spiritual path is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don’t know it.” ~Marianne Williamson

I remember it as if it happened yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst tightening of my chest that I had ever experienced. My heart was racing uncontrollably, my hands were clammy and cold, and nothing I did brought relief.

I prayed. I chanted. I tapped. I prayed and then prayed some more.

I thought I was going to die. I started to immediately regret all of the things I hadn’t said, all of the things I hadn’t done, and all the ways I’d failed to truly enjoy my life.

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally fell asleep just to wake up in another panic because my entire body was wired from head to toe. To make matters worse, I needed to be in court bright and early (more on that later).

I remember walking into my cardiologist’s office in a panic. He insisted nothing was wrong and that I should consider quitting my job.

“Quit my job?” I laughed out loud several times.

His face was stoic. He was not joking. Sh** just got real.

After wearing a heart monitor for thirty days because I needed to get to the bottom of these debilitating episodes, thankfully, I learned that my heart was functioning just fine. But, the symptoms were a message about a much bigger problem.

I needed a makeover. I needed a blank canvas.

Up until that moment, I had lived my life checking items off a list—a list society tells us we need to tackle if we want to be happy and successful, both extremely subjective words.

The list looks something like this:

Get the degree. Check.

Buy the expensive property. Check.

Be a “good” person. Translation: overextend yourself and be everything to everyone. Check.

Dive into a soul-sucking career for the sake of prestige and money. Check.

Play it safe. Check.

Well, I had pretty much checked off the whole list. Yet, I could not shake off this deep desire to find something that felt missing. I felt empty, sad, and angry most days, yet I covered it up with a smile and fake gratitude.

I’d lost my connection. I’d lost myself. I had no idea who I was. I did not know what to believe in.

It was like I was waking up from a deep sleep. My soul was craving meaning, depth, and connection. I needed to release all of the beliefs that had kept me hostage to fear and zombie-like comfort.

My day job as a lawyer was adding a layer of stress to my life that I could not shake off. I knew that this was not the path my soul intended, yet I needed the money, so it was not time to leave just yet. And to make things more confusing, I was good at it. My brain would trick me into thinking I needed to stay in that career.

While I managed my responsibilities during the day, most nights I consume more spiritual material than most do in a lifetime. I was in search mode. Although I learned many beautiful philosophies and teachings, this consumption of information was not the answer I was seeking.

I sought coaches, attended seminars, and read almost every book under the sun, yet the feeling of connection eluded me.

Why? Because I was trying to soothe myself from the mental plane and I forgot to feel my way through the process. I did not know how to connect to my body, and I certainly was not in touch with my right brain—the center of intuition and creativity.

From that point onward, I committed myself to soul work. The road was long and windy. There were rivers of tears along the way.

During this time, I discovered things I’d kept hidden from myself and got to know myself in new ways. I was peeling back layers that slowly revealed my true self.

One of my biggest revelations during my journey is that, although I was living like an extrovert, my essence is one of an introvert. I discovered that I am highly sensitive and empathetic. It was difficult for me to accept this because I associated introversion with shyness, weakness, and weirdness, but the more I felt into this truth about myself, the more I started to love the real me.

My introversion taught me about the beauty of downtime. It helped me feel into my body and learn all the things she needed at any given time to feel relaxed and nourished.

I realized I’d been living too fast, checking off lists, too busy “being productive” and making sure that I was pleasing everyone. But, I rarely checked in with myself to process my feelings, or to feel into what I really needed. I learned that I had abandoned my needs most of my life in the name of acceptance.

Much of this process involves facing what we have denied to ourselves for so long. It is painful, but extremely powerful. The gold at the end of the rainbow: I feel more inspired, refreshed, and connected. That is the theme of my life.

Connection.

So, what are some of the lessons that you can expect when you say yes to soul work?

Embrace your feelings—even the dark ones.

You can’t be happy all the time. It’s not possible, so please do not try. Do not chase happiness.

This beautiful universe is all about duality. How could you possibly love the light without experiencing the dark?

You can’t. Because you would not have a reference point.

And, what is the fastest path to the light?

Feelings.

They are the gateway to your soul.

I’m not referring to your everyday emotions, which can feel like a rollercoaster at times. I’m talking about deep reflection. I am talking about the feelings that are trying to deliver messages to you all day long.

The good. The bad. The ugly.

An amazing mentor taught me one of the most powerful processes for releasing negative emotions.

It just requires breathing and focus on the feeling. Once you feel the energy of an emotion, it shifts and moves as you breathe into it. There are so many insights that come to the surface when you remove the initial layer and make room for the expression of the pain.

Once the veil of pain is removed, you reach a higher perspective, where you see any situation from a higher plane and not just with your limited human eyes.

Ask yourself:

What am I constantly thinking about that’s bringing me down?

What do I long to release but haven’t been able to?

Then ask your feelings:

What are you here to teach me and breathe?

Feel the feeling; breathe into it. Feel it shift and move inside of you.

Listen. And then write whatever insights you receive. Do not judge yourself at any point. These are your feelings and they are real to you.

When I asked these questions, I had to admit to myself that I was continually expecting people to behave and feel like me, and when that did not happen, I felt disappointed. This way of processing the world was bringing me down, so I reevaluated my relationships.

I realized that I had resentment because I felt like I was a giver in most of my relationships. Why? Because over-giving stems from not checking in and slowing down. I stopped being only a giver. I learned how to receive. I started to express my feelings and most importantly, I started to feel into my needs and say yes to them.

At first, it felt selfish, but then it became necessary. The more I connected with myself and learned about my true needs, the more available I was for deeper and more authentic connections with the world.

Let your inner wisdom be your guide. It knows how to best navigate your life.

We listen to opinions all day long, unconsciously and consciously. People with good intentions want to tell us how we should do things, or how we should feel, think, and act.

While I personally believe that the universe delivers messages through others sometimes, the ultimate filter of your life must be your inner wisdom, that piece of unconditional love that guides you.

This guidance is available to all of us.

Ask yourself:

What am I refusing to see?   

What am I ignoring?  

What am I hiding from myself?

You may not get answers at first, but you will start to build a connection to your inner world.

Our brains will always have a conditioned response to these questions, but when we breathe and feel into the answers, a new message may emerge for you. A new perspective may be shown to you.

One of the biggest revelations for me when I asked these questions is that my true nature is one of a healer and someone who wants to help others heal and get in touch with their hearts. Although my entire life has been all about getting things done and building a career, my true nature is all about feeling and flowing. A very different energy than the one I was creating in my day-to-day life.

There is no better place than here, than now.

Being present is one of the most challenging tasks we can undertake, but if we want to transform, we need to learn to master the present. Otherwise, we are forever chasing the next thing.

I am currently living a reality where I wish I was doing what I love full time, but apparently, I still have lessons to learn from my current day job. I stay present by being a light warrior all day, even in the courtroom. I shine my light everywhere, and I allow it to lead me.

Although I am transitioning, it has been very challenging to stay present and bring my light to my day job, because the truth is that I want to be there, but I am here for now. But if I can be present here, I can be present anywhere. Because being present means that you are connected to your body.

To stay present, every so often during the day ask yourself these questions (courtesy of Tosha Silver):

Where am I?

What am I doing right this minute? 

Where has my mind taken me?

And most importantly, am I breathing fully?

Love your rest.

This is huge. It’s essential to your health. Say no as often as possible in the name of rest!

If my body does not feel like doing something, I honor that now instead of forcing myself to do things out of obligation or pressure. If I am tired and overwhelmed, I no longer have a problem retreating and declining to attend any events, including family commitments.

At one point, I thought I needed to be everything to everyone. This led to my mini breakdown. While I still have certain obligations because that’s just life, I check in way more often now to feel into whether something is a yes or no.

This takes some practice, so please be patient with yourself and do not expect everyone to understand your journey. It’s okay, we all have our own path. This is about what feels right to you.

My new mantra is rest. refresh. repeat.

The words that come out of your mouth when you’re angry or resentful are not the deep truth.

Mental truth is reactive and layered with stories from past experiences. Mental truth is often wrapped in deep pain and insecurities.

Your soul truth is the deeper truth that’s born from self-awareness and personal insight.

For example, your mental truth may cause you to react to your partner by shouting at them or shutting down when they fail to come home at the time you expected. Your mental truth may make a million assumptions like, “They do not love me or they aren’t there for me ever or they are cheating on me.”

If you can get to your soul truth, however, you may recognize that your feelings stem from past experiences and your assumptions lie in your own insecurities.

Your soul truth may ask you to voice your concerns or speak to your partner instead of defaulting to anger or blame. Your truth may ask you to forgive yourself for any past experiences that hurt you.

Your truth will always ask you to take responsibility for how you feel, and it will always encourage you to speak from your heart and inquire from the source if you are prone to making assumptions. Your truth will also warn you if something is off and will invite you to see things for what they are.

Breathe and ask silently, put your hand on your heart and ask:

What is my message about this situation?

 How can I see this differently?

What is this moment trying to teach me?

What is my inner truth showing me?

Your truth will feel profound and anchored in love and wisdom.

Creativity is the language of your soul.

When I started to color and draw portraits from YouTube tutorials, I entered the magical world of the right brain. This is where the magic lives.

Our left brains work hard to analyze and provide logic. Sometimes, this part of our brain can go into a loop because the logical part in us does not take into account our heart’s wisdom, nor does it take our feelings into consideration.

The right brain is more intuitive and abstract. The right brain is creative. It’s a place where we feel and interpret events through our gut, colors, and senses.

For example, if I were to express anger through my left brain, I would use words like “volatile,” “pissed off,” or “explosive.” If I were to describe anger using my right brain, I might say it looks like the color red and it feels tight in my chest.

And if I ask my right brain what anger is here to teach me, most of the time, it will feel like the message is that I am not being honest with someone or myself (of course there are a million other reasons why one can feel anger).

The right brain offers more depth. Being in my right brain has taught me to feel my body and the sensations and feelings, since these are messages and nudges from our inner wisdom.

So it is important in order to reach equanimity, to find your creativity and call it forth. You will feel more connected and more centered. Find activities that do not require thinking so you can start to feel the difference.

—

As you embark on your own path, which begins with willingness and the realization that something is missing, you will undoubtedly say goodbye to who you thought you were and you will fall in love with the gift that you are.

You may feel depleted some days, but for the most part you will experience a reorganization of your life and energy. You will feel like a child learning to see the world with new eyes. You will feel a deeper feeling of peace and happiness than you ever could have found by working through society’s list. This is soul work. Are you ready for it?

About Christine Rodriguez

Christine Rodriguez is a spiritual life coach dedicated to helping others transform beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that no longer serve them so they can create a life that’s aligned with their true desires and capabilities. To work with her, please visit miraculousshifts.com.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-find-that-something-that-feels-missing/

[ippyg]

Race, Love, and Hate

2017

Reality has set in for many people all over the world.  President Trump is the President of the United States.  A lot has happened since he has taken office.  However, to understand where I’m going to go in today’s post, we’ve got to go back — way back.

It starts in 1787, when Benjamin Franklin became the President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Two years later, Benjamin Franklin publishes essays and petitions congress to abolish slavery.  I start here only because of some lyrics that were penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda (writer of Hamilton: An American Musical) on the Hamilton Mixtape where he says 

"Plantation states are packed with promise makers, Do you realize the precious time these legislators wasted? Institutionalizing slavery only multiplied our troubles, Wait till the 1800's, and their population doubles. You all know, This is the stain on our soul and democracy, A land of the free? No, it's not, it's hypocrisy. To subjugate, dehumanize a race, call 'em property, And say that we are powerless to stop it, can you not foresee? Sir, even you, have hundreds of slaves whose descendants will curse our names when we're safe in our graves...”

  What really stands out is that the more they waited, the worse it would get, and it did.  Before hearing all this, I thought the first real attempts at trying to abolish slavery came just before and during the Abraham Lincoln era.  It’s clear though that these attempts came way before that.

Fast forward to present day and what were still feeling is a residual effect of all these things.  As we know, things didn’t just end after slavery, it took decades before segregation came to an end and everyone was treated equal.  I know that it is up for debate, and perhaps for another blog post, but for now, I can’t help but to draw parallels to the past.  It makes me feel that we’ve been conditioned to continue thinking this way.  As if things are as bad as they were then.  Almost as if none of it ever happened. 

As I grew up in Union City, New Jersey, as a Latino male, I remember feeling out of place when I’d go to places like Rutherford, Belleville, Montclair, in New Jersey, that were predominately white towns.  Why would I feel this way?  I’ve must have learned somewhere that being Latino would make me stand out.  In the Marine Corps, a place that was also predominately white, we’d joke about race all the time — Latinos bonded well with other Latinos because it was a cultural thing.  I only mention this to illustrate that point but I have to say that although we joke about race, we’re all brothers in the Marine Corps and the only color we all are in the end, to each other, is Marine Corps green…not white, black, brown, or yellow.

In any case, race is a thing that’s embedded in our minds unconsciously.  We don’t need laws or policies or anything that’ll continue to give power to race, what we need is to abolish our way of thinking by teaching fairness and for us parents, to raise our kids up right and with open arms to all humans.  It’s easier said than done but it has to be done and it’ll take time.

In 2010, at Miami Dade College, I was blessed to be part of a life changing experience.  We got to do an small exchange program with students in Alabama.  At first, the students came to Miami.  I was nervous.  What would they think about our culture?  Would they look down on us?  How do we respond when they show a lack on interest?  This is a note I wrote after our encounter: 

"Words can't not begin to describe the success of this event.  When I shared my thoughts yesterday with the entire group, I started off by quoting Socrates, when he said "I know only that I know nothing".  I thought this weekend I would be teaching rural kids from Alabama a new culture, other ways of living, and showing how different we all are.  I did.  However, what I did not anticipate was that I would be enlightened and inspired by the very people I had a preconceived notion of as being closed minded and ignorant.  I learned that not only was I the close minded individual, but that we have so much to learn from one another no matter our background.  We all have so much to offer despite our differences and at the end of the day, we are all incredible human beings.  Together, we can make a difference when we do set our differences aside and together we can make the world a better place.”  

Yes, I was nervous for no reason at all.  Despite this amazing experience, when we got the chance to go to Alabama, for part two, since our first round was such a success, I was still hesitant.  I remember thinking, “Well the students are great, but how about their family and friends?”  I won’t keep asking questions because as you can imagine, I wrote a note about that experience too.  This is it (by the way, the college we visited was Snead State Community College):

"Its been said numerous times [on this trip] that words are not enough to describe the joy, our gratitude, and the hopefulness that we feel.  I couldn't agree more.  I'm embarrassed in part because of my expectations before arriving here.  The best way to describe what I'm talking about is from the movie, "Remember the Titans".  In the movie, two schools merge during a time where segregation was a big deal.  The whites and blacks now had to play football together on the same team.  At first, the segregation was evident on the team as they practiced but as time went on, they came together.  I felt this was us.  

Although segregation isn't an issue, we did not know what to expect and if it would work the first time in Miami.  Not only did it work, but the engagement during the few days were flawless!  

In the second half of the movie, after the team has come together, they have a new challenge to face and that's their community at home.  On this trip to Alabama, I felt it would be the same.  I knew that our relationship with the Sneaders that had come to Miami would only grow but my concern was with the community?  Would the community accept us? How would the react to us? How would the people of Snead react to us since they had not been part of the trip?  So many questions and uncertainties ran through my head.  The outcome was amazing.  The outcome was exceptional.  I was worried for no reason.  The community and the Sneaders embraced us with such hospitality beyond my believe.  I was and still am truly in awe.  We were literally taken into your homes, not just Alabama and Snead State but Dr Exleys, Amy's, and Jared's parents home.  The unconditional trust shown to us is a sign, among many, of love and family [no matter who you are].

My assumptions were wrong twice.  It’s a lesson though that there is good in people and we need to start peeling of the layers that separate us and come together.  I can’t help but think that it’s due to the conditioning I’ve been unintentionally exposed to.  We can change that.  We can’t let things like politics and a difference of opinions divide us.  Differences are a good thing, we just need to be inclusive of each other.  Love overcomes hate and we’ve got to believe that.  The ball is in our court, the question is what are we going to do with it?  Score a point for love… and even if that’s your intend, you’ve got to be mindful and careful because you may unintentionally score for the other team.

Here are some pictures for those times in 2010 (None of the pictures were taken by me and for name privacy reason, I’m not including photo credit here)

Additional thoughts on Love: http://www.ippyg.com/post/144891966001/complicating-love