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Today's is about fulfilling your potential

You sit here for days saying, "This is strange business."
You're the strange business.
You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You're some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace, so you won't have to become coins.

Are you ready to get out of the furnace??

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Today's is about the value in acknowledging and feeling our emotions – a very modern concept expressed some centuries ago!

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...
Welcome and entertain them all.
Treat each guest honorably.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

This week we are sharing some favourite excerpts from Rumi.

Today's is about the necessity of hardship and difficulty to polish and unearth the diamond within.

Rumi says:
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

He also talks about welcoming rather than escaping from sorrow:

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. (<3)

There is a beautiful passage about the potential of spiritual growth in adversity in Elizabeth's Lesser's delicious book Broken Open. (HIGHLY recommended reading!)

She writes:
May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired.
When you feel yourself breaking down, may you...

This week we will be sharing some favourite excerpts from Rumi.

Here is today's excerpt about yearning and connecting with the Divine:

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?

Rumi

And another favourite about finding the spiritual amongst the mundane:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi

Here is a great introduction to Rumi's timeless verses:
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

From Roald Dahl's last children's story, The Minpins. It is the very last line of that very last story.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Viktor E. Frankl

The journey to writing the "Daily Wisdom" emails started when I was a child.

An avid reader from nursery school, I would mark up my books with writing that I enjoyed and which inspired me. I started curating a collection of quotes while I was still in elementary school. These handwritten quotes still dwell in an old yellowing notebook titled "Quotable Quotes". It is quite interesting to reflect on my personal journey of emotional and spiritual maturity through the quotes that I have gathered over the years.

The words of wisdom that I still gather (now in Evernote!) from books and people, in poetry and prose, inspire me to live up to my full potential, to do the right thing and to see the bigger picture. They validate my life experiences, encourage me to try harder when I feel discouraged and provide a healing balm to the heart on days when sadness and negativity overcome joy and positivity.

As we celebrate the now over 200 editions of Daily Wisdom (can you believe it? small steps do...

We have been talking about "How (not) to ruin a perfectly good relationship" this past month. We have covered lots of ground about what builds and destroys relationships.

It is now time to talk about some more serious things that destroy a relationship. These are "the biggies" - the behaviours that you really should stay away from if you want to keep your relationship healthy. They are also those that are harder to recover from without intervention and support.

Please note that the posts this week are of a sensitive nature. Some may be difficult to read, especially if you or someone you know is going through this stuff. And yet, these are very things that we really do need to talk about if we want to strengthen our relationships and transform relationships within our community. I encourage you to read them even if you think that they do not apply to you. Please feel free to share (discretely) with anyone who might benefit.

So today's edition of How to ruin a perfectly good...

Use your mind like a psychological bookkeeper and remember "the score" at all times. Remind yourself of the ways you give to the relationship and your partner doesn't.

Tell yourself things like:
A good marriage should be 50-50 (an untrue and dangerous myth, by the way. It is only distressed couples that focus on the 50-50 score keeping)

I'm always the one who takes out the trash.

Why am I always the one getting up with the baby in the middle of the night?

I'm always the one who says sorry and initiates affection. S/he never says sorry. It is so unfair.

Keep at it and your feelings about the relationship will quickly fester into a stew of resentment, ensuring that you stop being loving and start creating distance in the relationship.

Keeping score is a "me-centered" way of operating, by which you're elevating your role in the relationship to a place of superiority. And if you're "up," then your partner has only one place to land: down. Down in the swampy, stagnant pond of "not...