Mindful Lovin'

Relationships. The hardest and most rewarding aspect of life. They make us laugh, cry, melt, throw stuff, write sappy notes (emails), eat too much ice cream, spend too much time daydreaming, drink too much wine, send mean text messages, send schmaltzy text messages, say things we don't mean, mean things we're scared to say, do sweeter acts than we thought we were capable of, and compromise our girl time to cheer on a touch down, home run, or swoosh(?)

Let's be honest though, they take a hell of a lot of work and no one ever told us that when we were plopped down on the papasan sippin a Capri Sun watching Sleeping Beauty and her handsome prince. As I have previously mentioned, I am big into self help----don't worry, not like Dr. Phil or anything embarrassing like that. This is by far one of the best relationship books I have ever read on applying mindfulness to your relationship. And while there are SO many quotable quotes in this book on mindfulness, ego, trust, acceptance, conflict etc., here's a little exert that I chose to share with a dear friend of mine this morning:


"So many frayed strands of disappointment, some barely noticeable, dangle from our hearts in the complex tapestry of a lifetime. We may experience a great and crushing disappointment about our partner or our relationship at one time or another, or many little ones along the way. Disappointment is a kind of loss, the loss of what we had hoped something was or could be. At bottom is the loss of an illusion to which we were clinging or relied on. The only thing that can be lost, after all, is illusion. Disappointment can lead to despair, the illusion that there is no alternative. But to experience disappointment consciously is to embrace it, learn from it, and go on loving, to accept that all humans are a combination of contradictions. Anyone can please and displease, come through and fail, satisfy and disappoint. No one pleases all the time, yet we do not give up on others. Projections about another person's perfection or trustworthiness collapse as we grow up and arrive at realism."
~David Richo.