love_anyway daxle Daf's act of love had me thinking about an experience of my own. Every year my students get to a point where they start declaring their love for me. Seemingly randomly. We'll be in the middle of a lesson and someone will all wistfully say "I love you, Ms. C." and then there's a chorus of "me too!"s. It catches me off guard, the first time. It does sort of warm my heart, but it also makes me feel awkward. What do I say? What have I done to deserve their love? Then I think to myself: "Oh, that's flattering, but they're only 5. They don't know what they're talking about." Later in the year, last year, I came to discover that I loved them too. It just took me longer to let it happen. So today, I'm thinking, maybe they do know what they're talking about. Maybe they just don't have a bunch of emotional blocks to hurdle. I am in love with 3 people. Some might say that's more than enough. But I am very careful these days about who I trust enough to love them. Will they hurt me? They always do. Love anyway. I have to choose to love anyway. I'm not gaining anything by trying to protect myself. 081027 ... In_Bloom If love awakens in you, it's going to manifest Anyway Whether you try to protect yourself or let it run it's course Love anyway Just do it 081027 ... daf During the course of these days out on the corner, with this humble message, I've begun to learn about myself. I noticed, that despite hundreds of honks, waves and smiles..in spite of dozens of people who have stopped to ask and who were moved by this simple act..my mind kept focusing on the very few negative responses. And I started to wonder what this reaction was telling me about myself and about my ability to be loved. Not just to give love, but to accept it as well. It seems that I'm more inclined to accept and give credence to rejection than I am to give weight to the love that I receive on a daily basis. A hundred people can tell me that what I do is beautiful..that my songs are good..that my writing has touched them. But for every hundred bits of positive feedback, I'll always go back to the few critics. I'll always mull over in my mind and what they've said or done and let it influence how I myself feel about the things that I do. I have a manager now who believes very strongly in the things I create. He wrote this morning to remind me of how important it is that I learn to play the guitar..if only to find the tunes that have been floating around in my head forever. In the letter, he communicates a sincere belief that what I am doing has value. And yet I don't seem to see the value in anything I create. Oh I THINK that these things are beautiful..but I'm always looking for a reason to believe that I'm wrong. Perhaps it is the same way with love. Having had, when I was little, so many foster families tell me that they loved me, only to return me to the orphanage when I became more than a handful, perhaps created this mistrust in my mind..of acceptance. Perhaps I am reliving and recreating that pattern of rejection by focusing on rejection and not on love. As the days have gone by and I've been thinking about this, I find myself worrying less and less about what those few detractors think...more and more focusing on the love that is given and received. Little by little I'm coming to realize that I AM loved..just as I DO love. Nothing that has rejected my love in the past really matters..and focusing on such things can only bring me to reject the love that I have to give...hiding it away where it does no one, not even me, any good. I have to believe that the love I have to give is worthy, and that those who reject my gift of love do so because they themselves are inclined, as I have been, to distrust love and embrace rejection. You are loved..and I mean that with all of my heart. 081028 ... tourist I dig what you say, When a compliment comes my way I tend to think it is some sort of Sarcasm, or something. I've become an observer Static in relationship to the flow of Opinion as a Shielding Device. I tend to Doubt the Sincerety of Compliments because I don't want to Foster Dependence on them. There is an Addictive Quality to Belonging. I was an Outsider all through the Social Programing that passes for Primary Education, but I observed the Devicive Nature of Cliques and Classes, and decided pretty early on that I wasn't going to get sucked into the Flattery Cults. We are all unique and Important to the whole, and I Try to apprieciate that at all times, But My Insular Stance Stops Me From Displaying this Openly very often. That said , I Love What You're Doing Man, Really I Do. 081028 ... Lemon_Soda I have noted that patterns of thinking cement themselves over time and it takes a concious effort to undo the neural pathways I've formed making it so easy to think certain ways. Just like any part of our body, excercising our brain makes it grow stronger....but what part of it are we excercising? 081029 ... LEMON SODA RESPONDING CHECK 081110 ... r_r . 100414 ... fghio fghio 101114 ... shpaaaaaaaaaaaa shpaaaaaaaaaaaa 110228 what's it to you? who go blather from