Finding love - ways shared by Rumi and Pema

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek  and

find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.”

~ Rumi

“The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. ”

And…

“When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You’re able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently.”

Pema Chodron

 

 

Trusting issues ........

“So often times it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” ~The Eagles, “Already Gone”

So often we decide to make our lives better by changing the way we think about things. However, it is equally important to act in the new way as well. Only then can we really change.

This comes from my own experience. Ive been trying to change my mindset about people around me. At home, in my childhood, the constant worry was that ppl around all take advantage of you, you cant trust ppl & things like that. Now, i realise its not true. By holding these thoughts i am not giving others a chance to show me their good side, the one i can trust & open myself to. So i changed my mind (atleast I thought so!!)yet continued to believe hence act as though the world is a tough place, lacking in trust. Naturally, i was dissappointed & very confused.

It took a 3 year old to make me realise my mistake. When she wants a drink of water & i hold the glass to her lips, she trusts me & her hands are by her side. Now, had i been in her place, i would also place my hand on the glass, coz im not trusting the person to hold the glass correctly. In such small matters if i cant trust, how the hell will i allow others to do things in a trusting, loving manner.

Its tough on yourself. Expectations when combined with trust is such a beautiful thing. We deserve to be trusted yet we hesitate to bestow it on others. Im not talking about being naive, just simply allowing the goodness in ourself to be reflected by others.

And thats the challenge