Jodi’s Journal

“Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything.”

(Anthony de Mello)

“Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security…. You’ll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it’s got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn’t stand for that BS if I were you.”

(Stuart Wilde)

There’s a question that I’ve begun to ask myself whenever I’m in a one-on-one situation with another person. It’s a pretty simple question, really - what does this person need?You see, my role in any interaction is up to me. Usually we just follow along in a simple role without giving it much thought. If someone starts talking to us, we just start talking back, and our role is just as a participant in a conversation. But often we have the opportunity to be something different, something more, if we take the time and make the effort to try to assess the situation.

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To “let go” does not mean to stop caring. It means I can’t do it for someone else.

To “let go” is not to cut myself off. It’s the realization that I can’t control another.

To “let go” is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To “let go” is not to try to change or blame another. It’s to make the most of myself.

To “let go” is not to care for, but to care about.

To “let go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To “let go” is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

To “let go” is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To “let go” is not to deny, but to accept.

To “let go” is not to nag, scold, or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To “let go” is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To “let go” is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To “let go” is to fear less and to love more.

Tonight the sky above reminds me of you, Love
Walking through wintertime, where the stars all shine
The angel on the stairs will tell you I was there
Under the front porch light, on a mystery night

I’ve been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines
Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind
Would the wind be at my back?
Could I get you off my mind… this time

The neon lights in bars and headlights from the cars
Have started a symphony inside of me
The things I left behind have melted in my mind
And now there’s a purity inside of me

I’ve been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines
Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds
I wondered what might happen if I left this all behind
Would the wind be at my back?
Could I get you off my mind… this time

(Jonathan Rhys Meyers, from the August Rush Soundtrack)

“Life is complex. Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another. The journey of life is not paved in blacktop; it is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.”

(M. Scott Peck)

We each have our own pathways to develop both personally and spiritually. They are based on our character and past experiences. No one else can identify our paths for us. Tune in to your inner guidance system and follow its direction.

“What every man needs, regardless of his job or the kind of work he is doing, is a vision of what his place is and may be. He needs an objective and a purpose. He needs a feeling and a belief that he has some worthwhile thing to do. What this is no one can tell him. It must be his own creation.”

(Joseph M. Dodge)

“We focus on the negatives, losing ourselves in the ‘problem.’ We point to our unhappy circumstances to rationalize our negative feelings. This is the easy way out. It takes, after all, very little effort to feel victimized.”

(Elizabeth Kubler-Ross)

Are we victims or are we students? These are the two ways of looking at life events and especially those we wish would not befall us.

I don’t like feeling like a victim and this is especially true since I like to see myself as a strong woman. But there are those times when I wear the rut deeper by going over and over about how unfairly I am being treated by a person or circumstance.

If we think there is a reason for our life here on earth, we may want to consider that events are life teachers. Rather than sink deep into a morass of misery and feeling totally helpless and unhappy, we can decide to look at ourselves and wonder if there is something of value in this experience.

Will I learn that believing that things have to be a certain way always leads to unhappiness? Or will I learn that maybe I need to change the way I look at life or change something about me? Does my persisting in saying ‘it shouldn’t be this way’ lead to my feeling better?

I do have a choice, though so many times my automatic response would be to think of all the reasons I have for feeling upset about a particular event. I so rarely consider that maybe this unhappy situation is a necessary step to a happier one.

(Judy Walden)

“Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we’ve learned and create something.”

(Liz Carpenter)

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

(C.G. Jung)

We get clues about our unconscious programming if we watch our reactions, responses, feelings and thoughts about other people and events. Ask yourself: How do I judge or stereotype people? What pushes my buttons? What makes me angry or fearful or sad?

The outer incidents that trigger these reactions in me simply mirror my own nature. If I didn’t have beliefs around the issues that upset me, where would my reactions come from? If I didn’t have some internal reference, I wouldn’t react at all.

When outer events spark a reaction, we need to look inside to explore what’s going on.

“We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.”

(Vauvenargues)

I wish you light in your darkest hours. When life seems to be confusing or empty, and when your path seems to be hidden in the shadows of pain, doubt, despair, or unrest, may you find the light inside of you that will help you to see things as they truly are, for every night comes to an end, every storm runs its course, and light and peace always return to us.

I wish you the power of a perspective that allows you to see the beauty of the darkness, no matter how threatening your current situation, or how uneasy you may feel. There always is light for us to access, whether it be the light of God or the light of a close friend, or even the light within ourselves that is the power and the strength with which we’ve all been blessed to one extent or another. 

 (Living Life Fully)

Ozzie is as cute as ever. He’s 5 1/2 months old. The other dog in the last pic is my daughter’s greyhound Raider.

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

(e. e. cummings)