Truth be told, I’ve known I need to write about self-compassion for some time. Not just for my readers, but for myself. The reason I put it off? I suck at it. And I wasn’t quite ready to give up the part of me that believed that being gentle with myself would lead to stagnation. My high expectations of myself and others have propelled me forward, yet they’ve also been what kept me stuck. So now, as the Holidays begin and I sort through the proverbial piles of projects I’ve taken on, I’ve decided to say “fuck it!” and learn this lesson once and for all. After all, as Pema Chodron notes, “nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

So, let’s start by defining “Self-compassion:”

Simply put, it’s being gentle on yourself. It’s treating yourself as you would a friend when she comes to you with a struggle, failure, or self-critical belief. It’s the ability to lean into your feelings of discomfort rather than ignoring them. This means no longer asking for permission to feel your emotions. Instead, it’s learning to self-validate, stating “this is a difficult time for me and it’s okay that I’m struggling. What can I do to give myself the comfort I need and deserve?”

Each of you is a diamond; a beautifully shining creation of love with so many facets to explore. Your brilliant existence is one of the great joys of The Universe! ~ Creator

https://thecreatorwritings.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/a-diamond/

By Christina Lavers
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

“We need the tonic of wildness… At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The last few hundred years have seen a major shift in man’s relationship with nature. The trend has been a move away from the wild, organic, natural world towards artificial, digital, synthetic, controlled urban environments. With the advent of science during the Age of Enlightenment, man began to grasp that nature operated according to laws that through scientific investigation could be understood, and ultimately controlled and used for the benefit of humanity. The more we were able to explain, the less we perceived nature as a magical, awe-inspiring force that we were an inextricable part of. Humanity began to see itself as superior to nature, and thus a slow disconnection was set in motion — a disconnection that we are gradually beginning to understand has done us a lot more harm than good.

Dear Ones, expecting to create the life of your dreams while being on high alert for what you do not want amounts to checking store after store for anchovies when you really want ice cream. ~Archangel Gabriel

http://trinityesoterics.com/2015/12/02/daily-message-wednesday-december-2-2015/

God said:

My dear children, sometimes you feel that you have had a misdeal in life. What happens when you feel neglected by life, this amazing thing called life, you look for something to blame. If life is not at your feet today, you may take this to mean that you are at fault. This is ego, dear friends. Ego preens you to be guilty. Then ego can get a good grip on you.

It so happens that you are not the centerpiece of every single day’s life as it appears in the world. Did you have the idea that you were supposed to be the headline story? Is the day supposed to beat the drums for you and blow whistles, and today is only for you?

Remember that life in the world is about contrast. Life welcomes you every day. Only every day life does not consistently announce you as King. No one is sitting down to plan out every day. What appears to you as an uphill climb is simply part of life. From the angle you view everyday life, life is not always going to appear to you as bouquet of beautiful roses. On such days, you object. “Foul,” you cry.

Better to pat life on the head and murmur:

Julian Rose, Contributor
Waking Times

As Inside – So Outside

Is it possible that a thread of unity ties together even the most disparate of forces?

Are we actually that different from those who we think are our mortal enemies?

Is it possible that all humanity shares one collective unconscious mind?

These are important questions, because the old weapon of ‘divide and conquer’ is exercising an almost total paralysis over society at this time. Nothing new, you might say, but the remorseless sowing of the seeds of division has once again become a key weapon in whipping up factions to accept ‘war’ as the only, and inevitable end point.

But this war-cry can only work if and when we fall prey to the corrosive indoctrination which accompanies the rhetoric of ‘us and them’. Wars would not happen if the fuel for vindictive finger-pointing was no longer so easily assimilated into our everyday lives.