wanting someone to be different isn't love. it's control. it stems from my discomfort and dissatisfaction. my hubris that the world should be shaped in ways that please me.

I don't need to be thanked for being a customer. I just need to be given what I pay for.

believing there are things we have to do is such a burden.

avoiding the feelings that come up only suppress and prolong suffering. I find myself saying "not now" and then remembering: if not now, when? because I'll just be prone to avoid it then, too. attending to it now is like training a muscle.

if the name for something I loved was something else, would it make any difference to my loving it?

there's a way in which our needs can sometimes become someone else's burden if we're too much in a hurry to have them met.

if I was angry, and didn't express it, but let it stay inside my mind & body where did it that anger go? what did it create without my action?

if I look back to concrete evidence from the past (a written & dated communication, a photo) and it doesn't seem familiar, did I forget it or did it not happen? why is this any different for a thought?

answers? I can't give you those. what you need is more questions.

how often do people consider other people's situations? how common is empathy? it doesn't feel common.

too many people contorting themselves into unnatural shapes by practicing virtue as a means of holy accumulation.

sometimes it's easier to turn around and walk away instead of picking up my feet to continue along the brutal familiar.

is the dream the dreamlike state when we sleep or the place we snap back to? or someplace else altogether?

the deep dark a.m, hours of december seem to have become a tradition.

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."

sometimes I think life is simply learning how to grieve & be grateful.

our bodies are amazing at healing and unravelling what we've done to them. we just need to listen.

our reactions to others don't need to be controlled, but instead acknowledged consciously so that we can begin to unpack them & accept them. only then can we learn to respond authentically.

I will not be managed.

I will not be made to feel I am a problem.