ohapoeticsoul:

Some guidelines for loving:

1. Tell them about their brilliance. They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.

2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship. Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.

3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.” Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful: don’t pollute.

4. Listen, listen, listen. Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.

5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different.  Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.

6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them. 

7. Don’t conflate accepting with being a doormat or betraying yourself. Let them be who they are, entirely. Then, you decide what you need, in light of who they are. Do you need to make a direct request that they change their behavior in some way? Do you need to take care of yourself better? Do you need to set a boundary or to change the relationship? Take care of yourself well, without holding anyone else in contempt.

8. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself. Stop if resentment is building and retool. Don’t do the martyr thing. It helps no one and nothing.

9. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. Treat them as such.

10. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: Everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.

What steps do you take to love others?

green-street-politics:

butterflyguts:

green-street-politics:

butterflyguts:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

1) white people hate reading, but they love making uninformed comments

um thanks? but not all of us “white” people are like this. i love this blog but somethings you say is just as hurtful when white people make rude comments about other races.

Except the statement wasn’t about all white people?

Did you… not read the actual statement?

help me out here then, whats the actual statement?

The one that says

1) white people hate reading, but they love making uninformed comments

and is in no way saying “ALL WHITE PEOPLE HATE READING”…

But I mean, I guess you had to read it to understand.

Wow. Case and fucking point. They walked RIGHT INTO THAT SHIT.

tallblackguy:

jeromewasntbuiltinaday:

I fully believe in choice, the right to birth control, and etcetera. “Pro-lifers” are a rather illogical bunch.

But the fact that Planned Parenthood began as the “Negro Project” by Margaret Sanger with the intention of marginalizing the black population makes me…

All respect; a ton of orgs got their start from less-than-honorable beginnings.  

I can’t find the link, but someone else went through the concern that PP offices were in minority neighborhoods. Where else should a low-cost women’s health org be? No need being in a rich ‘hood; public transport is low to nil, and those women probably have healthcare available to them. So PP landed where they were needed and could offer services to those folk who didn’t have the access.