“To some extent, each of us marries to make up for his own deficiencies. As a child, no one can stand alone against his family and the community, and in all but the most extreme instances, he is in no position to leave and to set up a life elsewhere. In order to survive as children, we have all had to exaggerate those aspects of ourselves that pleased those on whom we depended, and to disown those attitudes and behaviors that were unacceptable to them. As a result, to varying degrees, we have each grown into disproportionate configurations of what we could be as human beings. What we lack, we seek out and then struggle against in those whom we select as mates. We marry the other because he (or she) is different from us, and then we complain, ‘Why can’t he (she) be more like me?'”
Sheldon Kopp, via Sunbeams (Page 61)
“You want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you.”
J. Krishnamurit, via Sunbeams (Page 60)
“It is less painful, it turns out, to feel betrayed than to feel forgotten.”
Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life (Page 83)
Francois de La Rouchefoucauld Quote on Absence and How It’s The Ultimate Relationship Test
“Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Beyond the Quote (Day 411)
Without absence it’s hard to tell what’s a priority and what’s not. Because if there’s no absence, then there’s immersion and if we’re immersed in something, then that’s all we know—we have nothing to contrast it against. If we were only ever taught math, how might we know if we liked another subject better? If we only ever spent time with certain people, how could we know what it would be like to spend time with others? Contrast is what provides us with the opportunity to compare. Without it, we have only the option we have.
Read More »Francois de La Rouchefoucauld Quote on Absence and How It’s The Ultimate Relationship Test“Our relationships with people become the instantiations of negative attitudes to ourselves: I believe myself to be ugly; I behave in an ugly way; I then have relationships with others that confirm my belief. A self-perpetuating doctrine.”
Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 150)
50 Deep Love Quotes – And How Love Is More Than A Relationship
Excerpt: These deep love quotes aren’t for you to copy and paste and send to your lover—they’re for you to copy and paste onto the walls of your heart.
Read More »50 Deep Love Quotes – And How Love Is More Than A Relationship
Rumi Quote on Gifts and How Nothing Seems Right
“You have no idea how hard I have looked for a gift to bring you. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to a gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”
Rumi
Beyond the Quote (Day 400)
Read these words and remember your mirror. You are not without the gold that you so desperately seek; it is already within you. You are not without a source to quench the thirst of your desire; for you are the source itself. The gifts that you so longingly crave do not come from others; they come from inside you.
Read More »Rumi Quote on Gifts and How Nothing Seems RightLove should never bind you; love should set you free.
“A soulmate isn’t someone who completes you. No, a soulmate is someone who inspires you to complete yourself. A soulmate is someone who loves you with so much conviction, and so much heart, that it is nearly impossible to doubt just how capable you are of becoming exactly who you have always wanted to be.”
Unknown
Beyond the Quote (Day 399)
Chains, handcuffs, prisons—are things that confine. If we were to pick emotions that most matched these confining forces we might pick dependency, jealousy, insecurity. Each of these emotions are thrust from one person to another in an emotional attempt to keep them bound. So that one doesn’t leave the other; so that one doesn’t hurt the other; so that their expectations and conditions can remain in tact over the other—this is not love.
Read More »Love should never bind you; love should set you free.“’You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them,’ she says now. ‘You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.’”
Tara Westover, Educated
“We vowed that full freedom would forever live at the center of our union. That we’d never seek to own each other, but rather to love and liberate, like birds always free to fly. In place of a mandate to be together, there stood a choice, one we’d continue making every single day on our journey.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 154)
“A soul mate connection isn’t just an awareness. It’s a deep sense of knowing, a wave of intuition that permeates your every pore. All the cells in your body rise up on their tiptoes. You don’t see this feeling coming. You can’t prepare for it. You might even try to push it away, as I did. And yet it always surges back, each time with greater force, sweeping you up in its mighty current, thrusting you toward a beautiful shore unknown.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 135)
“We don’t draw loved ones into our lives coincidentally. They’re there to shine a light on our unfinished emotional business, to reveal to us our deepest tendencies. And as my life is proving to me even now, those patterns appear time and time again, often cleverly disguised. And they’ll keep right on showing up until we’re willing to truly look at them.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 126)
“When you don’t speak the truth for years at a time, the words left unspoken slowly leak the air out of your connection. Even if, years later, you are ready to say what you couldn’t earlier, the moment has passed. The details and circumstances have faded from memory, and yet the emotions linger. And then the day finally comes when you no longer recognize the person you first loved.”
Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 124)
Osho Quote on Relationships and How The More You Love, The More You Become Lovable
“People come to me, they always say, ‘The other is not loving me.’ Nobody comes and says, ‘I am not loving the other.’ Love has become a demand: ‘The other is not loving me.’ Forget about the other! Love is such a beautiful phenomenon, if you love you will enjoy. And the more you love, the more you become lovable. The less you love and the more you demand that other should love you, the less and less you are lovable, the more and more you become closed, confined to your ego.”
Osho, Courage (Page 67)
Beyond the Quote (349/365)
Do for others that which you most want done for yourself. I cannot think of better advice for anyone who is looking to improve the relationships in their lives. The overwhelming majority seem to default to blaming and criticizing rather than relating and empathizing. You don’t often hear people say things like, “What am I doing wrong?” “How can I better love the other?” “How might I improve the way I treat them?” It is more often than not things like, “Look at all of these things they are doing wrong!” “Listen to all of these reasons on how they are not loving me!” “Let me vent to you about how poorly they are treating me.”
Read More »Osho Quote on Relationships and How The More You Love, The More You Become LovableSteven Bartlett Quote on Dating and How We Should Keep Ourselves As The First Priority
“If we’re dating, I want to be your second priority. I want your first priority to be you, your ambitions, your life, and your future, because my priority right now is me and mine. Finding happiness and security alone is crucial to finding it together.”
~ Steven Bartlett
Beyond the Quote (348/365)
Want to know the secret to a happy relationship? Two happy people. Not two dependent people who are constantly negging each other for attention/ validation/ reassurance. Not two people who are constantly placing expectations on the other person to fulfill. Not two people who are so scared to be alone that they demand the other person be in every single faucet of their lives. And definitely not two people who are trying to use the other for selfish gains. The secret is being happy first—as an individual—and then sharing that happiness with the other.
Read More »Steven Bartlett Quote on Dating and How We Should Keep Ourselves As The First Priority3 Reasons Why Bad Relationships Are More Harmful Than Good Relationships Are Beneficial
Excerpt: I see it time and time again where a “bad” relationship causes more harm than a “good” relationship causes benefit. The question is… why?
Read More »3 Reasons Why Bad Relationships Are More Harmful Than Good Relationships Are Beneficial
Choose Your Hard
“Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.
Unknown
Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.
Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy. It will always be hard. But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.”
Beyond the Quote (336/365)
We’re wired to follow the path of least resistance. But, choosing to do what’s easy now doesn’t last. In fact, in almost every case, it only makes life harder later. It’s the principle of delayed gratification (more on this below).
So, while life can be easier from choosing the easier options, the truth is, it’s only a temporary easier. Experiencing the “hard” in life is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. And take heed, hard now and hard later are not created equal.
Read More »Choose Your Hard