Mind, Body and Soul...

Recently a friend said to me that we see love on display everywhere.

It is on television, it is in songs, it is movies and even tied into many things that we purchase..from the mundane to the luxurious.

Love is all that we need.  Love is right there waiting for us.  Love is out there and all around us.  We become intoxicated with the idea of having it and receiving it. 

However, the reality is that few people are willing to give love, to trust love, to share real passionate and caring love to one another.  Perhaps it is from all the wounds and damage that we suffer along the way in life?  Perhaps we just get too traumatized and damaged to trust someone else.  Or perhaps we ourselves don't truly believe in love and therefore can't really give it in the first place. 

When we are 16 and in love, and we say to someone we love "I need you." How does the power of such a simple statement change as we grow older?  By the time we are 26 years old, are we more or less likely to say "I need you"?  What about when we are 36 or 46, or even 56?

Time and the damages of life does influence us.

We need to keep a fresh mind about life.  We should try not to allow negative thoughts and stereotypes to influence our opinions of an individual.  We need to always learn to assume nothing about them.  Instead, we should  try to explore who they are as an individual and work with their energy.

When two flames are placed on one candle, the candle burns twice as bright, but only lasts half as long.

When one candle burns midway into the other candle, you shorten the life of one candle and could possibly extinguish the life of the second candle with the spill over.

However, when two flames from two candles are brought together they burn a brighter light and last a normal lifetime.

These examples of working together to become better works this way in all of our relationships.  With family, friends, coworkers...and especially the person we're in love with. 

When you first allow yourself to give love, and then allow yourself to receive Mind, Body and Soul love...the two people become like that third example of candles.  You burn together a flame twice as bright as all others and are able to live a normal life span.

All of this starts with just two words.  Trust and Effort.  You have to see the person in front of you for all the right reasons and realities.

It could all start with a simple hello, or a look, or a feeling.  It could start from a mere passing by.  In the end it will be the effort of words and deeds together that will build that trust.  That trust will build a future.  That future of everlasting Mind, Body and Soul love.

"Love And Happiness"

Love and Happiness.

What a concept.  They don't always have to go together.  But they are sure great when you can get them both going at the same time.

You can love someone, and just simply not be happy with them in a certain moment.  You most definitely can be happy and simply not necessarily be in love.  But when you are in Love and Happy...it is a drug like no other.  Nothing can match that high that you will get from being both in Love and Happily in Love. 

Love and Happiness.  It is the one drug that we should all experiment with.

"What's Love Got To Do With It?"

It is amazing to see how we are born into the world carried and cradled...and if we're lucky we can leave this world carried out by those remaining in this life.  In between it all comes all the hopes and heartbreaks of love gained and love lost.

Sometimes I wonder, why all of the pain in between those moments.  Do they really help us grow all the time?  People who you thought were friends, aren't really all that understanding of you anyway.  Relatives who use the name of family as if it were a badge to try to use you for whatever they can gain.

Even more disheartening, is when someone you're in love with turns around and hurts you.  They either break your heart with a selfish, demeaning, or dismissive behaviors.  Or even worse, they leave you.  Or if your relation with your own son or daughter, mother or father isn't a good one...how much it will pain your heart when you fight and leave one another.

So what the heck does love have to do with all of this pain?

I guess when you think about it, through all of these thoughts there is just one thread...and that is the word love.  The pain we feel is because of the love we have for the other person.  Without that love, we could not feel any pain.  It's hard to admit that we loved that other person and that's why they have hurt us, but at the end of the day, the reality is that we opened ourselves up to them and therefore allowed them to hurt us.  But it all started with love for that person. 

I guess that's what love has to do with this whole thing.  It's the risks that we take.  Some risks that reward us.  Some that don't.  It doesn't matter.  It's really the actual growth in extending ourselves and finding our own souls being moved or made to feel comfortable and significant around another soul close to us.  Or one that we wish to feel closer to. 

When things are going well, it's all so so sweet and beautiful.  It is easy to share and keep giving that love.  But when things get bad and painful, we want to retract that love back.  We feel angry and hurt for giving that love.

Love has everything to do with it.  And so does risk.  We have to love ourselves enough to take some risks.  Otherwise we'll just pass through this world never knowing our potential or finding meaning to our lives. 

One door opens and as another one closes.  We end one relationship, no matter how painful only to allow ourselves to find a better one.

We are saddened about a love that we lost, perhaps we will learn how to better handle a better love that comes into our lives?

And so it goes.  Just as when we were born.  We all want to feel loved, wanted and appreciated by someone.  We all want to have some kind of meaning and significance to someone around us.  We just must chose our risks wisely and remember to appreciate love.

Love Or Lust Isn't Cheap...(humor)

I just can't resist sharing some humor about the cost of love and or lust.

Some men are so cheap.  In tough economic times, and no matter how many social advances women collectively around the world...chivalry must never die.  Gentlemen, if you take a woman out to lunch or dinner and there's no preset agreement to "go dutch", aka you both pay equally for the bill, then expect to pay the bill.  Unless of course she's a CEO for some billion dollar technology company and invited you to her company commissary.  Even then, it can and should feel awkward to have the woman pay your way.

I remember hearing a story a few years back where a woman was having a bad time with her long time boyfriend, and decided to break up for a while.  While she "ventured" she ran into an old male from her high school days and decided to get involved with him.  Well, this rebound relationship didn't work out to well and it was over within a month.

When the moment of truth came to call off the relationship, the man in question accepted that the fling was indeed over.  However, upon his exit from the discussion, he turned and cited some unpaid bills for lunch that she owed him.  Basically he was asking her to pay him back for some quick lunch grabs from a fast food eatery like McDonald's...or so the story goes.  Either way he deserves a definite slap on the back of his neck for doing so.

From the time we men are young boys, we always know that we have to spend some money to attract and affirm the attention of the female we're focusing our amorous feelings on.  In the early teen years we even ask our parents (or other caregiver) to provide us with some extra spending money so that we can make a nice impression on that woman.  As we mature, and come into our own, making our own money, it's all pretty much the same.  We "give" in order to hopefully receive.  The only thing that really changes this formula is when the woman in question is needy and greedy and is just using the man to obtain monetary things.  Her side of the relationship is absent of love of any kind, and trading in her body for materialistic things is in full swing.

All of that being said...once the relationship is over...it is over.  For a man to go back and try to bill a woman for meals...is pretty ridiculous.  And to answer your question about the guy above - no they didn't "go dutch".  What this guy was thinking, I'll never know.  But I do know that he made it a little harder for the rest of us men.  Do we now have to negotiate a payment plan when we take a woman of our interest out to dinner?  Are there food values placed on a good night kiss?  How much does a turkey dinner get you as opposed to a breakfast sandwich?  How much does she have to eat for you to earn a walk up to her to her apartment door?  Does prime rib automatically get you sex?  Better yet, does she split the gas bill if you pick her up and drop her off?  Oh brother.  It goes on and on.

Have a little bit more chivalry gentlemen.  Love and lust are not cheap.

The Power Of Love

Every time she enters the room, no matter how crowded it is, I can feel her enter the room.  Our eyes automatically find each other and we just wait for the moment when we will be within kissing range.  That kiss "hello" or "I missed you" or even "I love you".  You wanted so much to see her the night before that you couldn't sleep.  Now that you have her with you, you can't let her slip your sight.  Her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her hair...you see it all in your mind.  Just the smell of her!

When you kiss her lips...you feel the power...the power of love.

It is amazing...this power of love.  We can extend it through our eyes, our hands, our lips even the sound of our voices.  Eyes are beautiful.  Lips are like forever. But there is something about the hands...the touch that is everlasting.

There is no greater extending of the power of love than through our hands.  Whether that love is for our lovers, our children, our siblings or our friends.  There is nothing greater than extending that love through some form of touch with the hands.

We can never forget the hugs from our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers or best friends.  We never can forget the handshake from a friend we haven't seen in a long time.  How can we forget holding our child's hands for their first walks with us around the house or outside on a sidewalk or in a park?  Is there anything more electric when we caress the hand or back of someone we love who is in deep emotional pain?

How about the time when we grabbed our friends while having a good laugh?  Or when we were startled about something?  Giving high fives to strangers in an arena or stadium when our mutually loved team is winning or makes a winning play?  We are sharing...sharing that power of love.  The love for pulling for one another...supporting one another...feeling one another's joy or pain.

That is the power...of Love.

Peace, Love and Joy onto you and all of your loved ones this weekend.  In this fast pace life that we live in...please do not forget to share the power of love with those who matter to you most in your life.

Sweet Words...

A coworker was talking to me last weekend about his cruise ship trip with his family.  I remember going on mine with my family back in 2008.  It was a really nice trip.  My coworker and his family had a good time.  What fascinated both him (and me when I went) was how courteous the ship's crew was to him and his family.  He couldn't believe just how polite and helpful that they were.  I told him that I remembered that too from my trip and tried to incorporate the very courteous, respectful and helpful language that I too was treated with, back at work and the public we deal with.

It lasted for a while, but here in New York, it became evident that being too helpful meant that some folks weren't going to stop pushing for more things...things that we were unable to help them with.  So I had to learn to cut certain things short lest that person have me doing something completely outside of my job and workplace.  They needed to call an outside agency or clearly get in contact with another department.

My coworker said that the realization kicked in much sooner for him.  Once he got off the boat, got in a cab in Florida, then the airport and flew back to New York...the realities of our area hit him real quick.  The cab driver who pulled up to take them back to Long Island, refused to get out of his cab in the frigid weather and help put the luggage from his wife and two kids into the trunk.  He sat in the cab the whole time.  Then when they got in, he simply drove them to their location.

I'm sure they left that cab driver a nice tip too. 

Sweet Words.  Sweet Words can never go bad like a piece of fruit.  You can never have too much of it like sugar in your coffee.  Sweet Words quiet down all complaints, aches, ills and anger.

Please
Thank you
I'm sorry, is there anything else I can do for you?
No it's my fault.
Hi, how can I help you?

You wonder why we don't use these words more in relationships and friendships?  You wonder why we have to wait for customer service over the phone or on a ship to be received so well?  We all know that there are mean souls in this world who take kindness for a weakness.  However, that should not prevent us from being kind to one another.  Especially when that person is our significant other, our siblings or our own children.  We should try harder to use Sweet Words.  It is an art...an art we should all aspire to become masters at towards our loved ones.
 

Do You Remember?

Do you remember your first crush?  I remember mine.  I was just a little boy.  The summer between my first and second grade.  She was a teenage girl helping out in a summer school for advanced kids who could read.  I just remember that feeling...that feeling of always wanting her attention, her affection.  It was so different from how I felt about my mother, sister, aunt or female peers.  I knew this girl...was a pretty woman who simply grabbed my attention right from the beginning.

Yes, that first crush.  You walk around dreamy eyed, thinking about that particular person.  Most times that first crush is about someone you probably have no chance of being with or expressing love to.  It's just that their being stirs something inside you.  It's all biological, biochemical.  Some could argue that it's all just mental and emotional, depending on your age.

I have to disagree with that.  Perhaps its all the above?  I just know for me it was visual and biochemical.  After a while she knew I had a crush on her and seemed embarrassed, but she handled it pretty good.  She entertained me, but kept me at a distance too.  I was just a kid.  Wherever she is today I thank her for that gentleness.  It made a difference later on as I had to deal with someone having a crush on me.  I learned how to be kind, gentle and appreciative while still keeping the distance.  It wasn't in me to take advantage or abuse someone substantially younger or someone that I had absolutely no interest in being with.

It's amazing how those life lessons come back to you in ways that you never even dreamed of them happening.  Treating others with kindness even if you have to keep your distance.  Having respect for them and for yourself.  Then came that moment when both parties realized what was happening and simply had a healthy and positive friendship instead of an interaction that devolved into negativity.