“Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.” – Swedish Proverb

Not just love ME when I least deserve it, love EVERYONE when they least deserve it! It’s when we are angry or down and are  possibly  hurtful because of it that we need love the most. No one that cares about you is going to try to intentionally hurt you, so when they say hurtful things or act in a hurtful way, it’s coming from a place of pain inside. Instead of being selfish and getting angry right back at the person, love them! Try to figure out what is paining them to act the way they are because they really need it then more than ever.

You know, today doesn’t happen every year, it’s a pretty special day. I see it as a freebie to make the best out of. So, love someone a little more today, and, as my Moodscope.com email told me today: “Get yourself some flowers. Put on your favourite music and dance. Phone someone you’ve not spoken to for ages. Go to see a movie. Tell a person you love that you do. Have a long bath. Wear a hat. Wear a badge. Wear nothing (close the curtains if you do this though). Light a candle. Eat outdoors even if you have to wear an overcoat. Buy someone a lottery ticket. Play a game with a kid. Play a game like a kid. Learn a new word. Stand on your head. Buy and cook something you’ve never had before. Tell a joke.”

But, ALWAYS, love! (I feel like I should be in a 60s movie holding a daisy or something, but I MEAN it and I’m okay with it!) Linked below is a song that I love! So I think I’m going to just stand up and dance at work because this song is EXACTLY how I feel these days 🙂

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything; It is the essence of order and lends to all that is good, just, and beautiful.” – Plato

There are a lot of quotes about music that I just love, but this one by Plato is probably the most eloquently written in my eyes. I love music, every thing about it. It’s amazing the emotion it can pull out of you and how it can turn the worst of times into moments of peace and reflection. There are certain songs that help to me calm me, that I tend to have on during simple meditation.  They help to wind me down after those long, busy days. I have linked them all below and here is what they are: “The Long Day is Over”-Norah Jones, “Let it Be”-The Beatles (sung by Jennifer Hudson), “Believe”-Brooks & Dunn, “Shine the Light”-Sugarland, “I Won’t Let Go”-Rascal Flatts. I could link songs for days on here but these 5 just came to mind when I was typing.

Music is there for you when others can’t be or when you just want to be alone, yet be hugged and kept warm by something bigger than a physical person. If I could thank you, I would, music haha, as funny as that sounds, but all the gratitude in the world wouldn’t be enough for all that you do for me. Enjoy!

“Apologizing does not always mean you are wrong, it just means that you value your relationships more than your ego.”

Life’s too short! Put what’s important first, relationships, and your ego second. Sometimes it is okay not to be so proud and realize that while you are busy being angry or holding onto a grudge that you are missing out on building and feeding the relationships that help keep you strong. Apologizing lets the other person know that they mean more to you than some silly argument or disagreement. You never know how much time you have with people, why waste it being angry. Wouldn’t you rather look back and smile? Be the first to step back and agree to disagree!

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” – Greek Proverb

What are we all living and working towards anyways? Well it’s not only for our future but for the future of those we will never meet. I’m sick of watching and reading the news everyday and learning of all the selfish behavior in this world, the hatred and greed that consumes so many people. Reading this quote really spoke to me today. We cannot grow as a society if we don’t take the rest of society into consideration.

Look at it this way, when you plant a seed to grow a tree, it will be YEARS before that tree will ever be large enough to really be noticed. Shade of that tree and possibly even the fruits of its labor won’t be enjoyed for years to come, possibly even long after we are gone. But we plant it anyway, because it isn’t about us. Because the large trees around us now were planted by those whom which we will never know and it’s time for us to return the favor to those that will walk this earth long after we are gone. We shouldn’t work everyday solely to benefit just ourselves, but with a larger vision of the happiness, prosperity, health and progress of those we shall never have the chance to meet. Find greater meeting in that which you produce, it’s more gratifying that way. We are all connected and what we do, whether we realize it or not, effects everyone else in this world somehow. Make your mark!

“Sometimes you just have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down.” – Kobi Yamada

New things are scary. I can speak for myself when I say that I have held back from doing or saying things in my life out of fear of the unknown, fear of judgement, fear of rejection, fear of getting hurt, fear of failure. All of these things can be super scary if you let your mind go there. The thing is, you never know the outcome of anything unless you try. Like they say, “The worst thing someone can say is ‘no.'” You have to try, you have to take the leap, because it’s worth knowing the outcome, good or bad. If not, you’ll always wonder ‘what if?’

I was reading through my quotes today and there are so many that say the same thing as this one, just in a different way. Comes to show how important this is. If we spend our life focusing on the negative of what could be or what could happen, we lose out on actually experiencing the rush of the leap into the unknown. We only live once! So, take the leap, learn to fly in the process. The wings you have can’t help you fly unless you open them and let them try. This all reminds me of the song, “Standing Outside the Fire” by Garth Brooks. You can find the video and song linked below. Great song!

“When found with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you, but because in that brief moment when the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for.” – Unknown

It’s funny to read this quote because it’s such an easy way to trick ourselves to think it doesn’t matter if it’s head or tails, that either option is fine, and we just need someone to pick it for us. (Someone being a coin.) We trick ourselves because, like this quote says, deep down inside we know which side of the coin we want it to land on, we actually DO know what we are hoping for and the coin’s answer is unimportant in the end. You just feel it! Try it, flip a coin over a big decision you can’t seem to make. The subconscious mind will amaze you with the power it has.

We already know what we are hoping for, sometimes we are just too scared to make a choice and we doubt that gut feeling. But this quote reminds us to go with our gut, that feeling you sometimes ignore, look past the fear and go with that split second feeling you get with the answer while the decision is in the air. Don’t even look down at the coin once it lands, it’s just metal. And if you want to wait til’ the coin drops, go for it. Because, I can almost bet that if it lands on one end, you’ll feel a little disappointment inside and, if it lands on the other, you will feel some internal relief.

“Wishing is good for us. Daydreams, fantasies, castles in the air, and aspirations all drive us forward, impel us to make things happen. They also tell us a lot about ourselves. Our wishes come straight from our core, and they are loaded with vital info.”

I have this weird attraction and love for dandelions. I just think they are so beautiful and complex yet full of a crazy hope for dreams and fantasies and wishes to come true. We blow on a little flower and put the energy of our biggest wishes into those little “petals” as they fly into the open air of opportunity and the unknown. How cool is that? It’s like making a wish at 11:11. We do it with only faith and hope to go on. And it feels so good to put your wishes out there. The little things that we yearn for inside that no one gets to see, except for this little weed.

To me that represent so many things: hope, faith, wishes, dreams, but, most of all, letting go. Letting things fly away and getting things off your chest. Doing this, like following our dreams, is what helps to make things happen. It’s the little start we need to help us move forward. That all being said always remember the following too:

“Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.” – Baltasar Gracian, Spanish Philosopher and Writer

This beautiful image below is linked to a totally unrelated article I read today about “The Gift of Uncertainty.” Check it out!

Th excerpt below is from a brilliant article I read today which is linked at the end. PLEASE take the time to read. I think this is SO important in today’s society to understand how to manage difficult emotions and the importance of doing so. Enjoy!

True Strength: Learning to Feel What Is – Nancy Colier

“Sadness is part of every single life, with no exceptions. And yet we pretend that a life in which sadness is denied is more admirable or well-lived than one in which it is acknowledged. To feel sadness when something sad is happening is appropriate and truthful…

Strength is a measure of how we handle the challenges of life, not whether they show up. The challenges will come, of that we can be sure. But can we acknowledge the truth, face the hard feelings, work with them, learn from them and ultimately heal from them? These are the markers of strength… 

As a society, we have no idea how to experience and be with sadness — or fear, anxiety, anger or frustration for that matter. We are not educated on how to manage difficult emotions, one of life’s most important skills. Rather, we are taught (and are teaching our children) that sadness is the enemy and that if we allow it to exist, it will destroy us. As a result, we will do anything and everything to avoid feeling it. Even funerals are designed to make us happy, to celebrate the wonderful life the person enjoyed, but certainly not to feel sad that they are no longer here. Our entire self-help industry is tailored to help us avoid feeling sad, to teach us how to arrange our lives so that we never have to feel anything difficult. Where these programs fail however, is when we end up in a situation where we cannot control or deny our sadness. Then what? Then we are deemed weak, and worse — failures for feeling what is actually appropriate.

In truth, we can learn to be with sadness, not to fear it, but to simply accept it as another of life’s experiences that can be lived through. The fact that sadness appears is not a sign of our failure. Its absence is not a sign of strength, other than perhaps the strength of denial. Sadness is simply a part of life. The sooner we allow it a seat at our inner table, the sooner we can get on with the business of living. When we allow ourselves to feel sadness when it arrives, to embrace and bring kindness to it — not judge ourselves for experiencing it — it is then that we grow truly strong. We know that we can confidently face whatever comes. True strength can only arise out of the truth.

So too, when we are able to feel sadness, we are also able to feel joy when it shows up, and the gratitude that accompanies it. We cannot deny the emotions that we don’t want and expect ourselves to be able to fully experience the emotions that we do want. We do not need to expend so much effort trying to control our lives so that sadness is kept out; such is a task for Sisyphus. What we need is to teach ourselves and our children that when sad things happen, we are sad — that sadness comes and goes (as does happiness) and that ultimately, we can stand like the big oak tree and weather whatever winds pass through us. To be strong is not to outrun sadness, but rather to learn to embrace it when it is here, to take good care of it so that it can heal. This is a warrior’s strength, a wise parent’s strength. The sadness will pass, as all emotions do, but we will remain, stronger and more solid in our ability to 
live — and love — with what is.” 

For the full article this came out of please click here.

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.” – Prime Minister, Love Actually

This is, by far, one of my favorite movies of all time. It does an excellent job of following eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives. IMDB defines the story line as the following, “The characters are falling in love, falling out of love, some are with right people, some are with the wrong people, some are looking to have an affair, some are in the period of mourning; a capsule summary of reality. Love begins and love ends. They flirt a lot. They are all flirting with love. At all ages and social levels, love is the theme. Romantic love and brotherly love is the hotchpotch through out the movie.”

It opens your eyes to the many levels of the word “love.” Today, being Valentine’s day and all, I was reminded of this film and pondered the definition of love quite a bit. Yes, to many it is a Hallmark holiday. And, yes, I feel that love should be shared with those you love every day of the year, not just one day. But, having one day when you share this love a little extra can’t hurt right? It reminds you that you can’t escape love. The card aisle of Walgreens, the commercials on tv, the Valentine’s Day episodes of your favorite sitcoms make sure that you don’t miss out on February 14th. So I’ve accepted that, and don’t see it as a day that makes a difference if I’m single or not. It doesn’t matter. Why? Because I am SO loved! By my family, my friends, my dog, my co-workers and possibly even by people I don’t know. I also love SO many people in this world more than I can ever explain to them.

So, for those of you that find this holiday silly and possibly even depressing, take a different perspective and be happy to know that we have a day dedicated to love instead of days dedicated to hate. Take the time to tell your loved ones that you love them and take today as a reminder of how important it is to be and feel loved, and take it with you ever day, sharing your love every chance you get. February 14th? Just another Tuesday this year? Nah, it’s more thought provoking than that. It’s a reminder that love actually is all around!

Happy Love Day Friends!

My favorite scene from the movie is linked to Hugh!