CONTROL OF OTHERS

Control of Others

As soon as you love someone your ego goes crazy
and tries to take control. This happens to everyone.

Love brings every shadow up to the surface
so it can be witnessed and transformed.
You are either willing to look or you aren’t.

Love gives you homework to do.

If you don’t become aware of your fears and insecurities,
they will eventually destroy your relationship.

Don’t turn the blessing of love into a curse.
Acknowledge your fears to your partner
and ask for help in walking through them.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

CONFLICT OR AMBIVALENCE

Conflict or Ambivalence

To push for a decision in the face of conflict or ambivalence
is a way of punishing yourself or others.
Don’t try to force a decision
when you aren’t ready to make one.

Instead, embrace both sides of the conflict.
Acknowledge all the things you want
about the job or the relationship
and all of the things that make you want to run away.

Get your psychic arms around all of it.
Relax and breathe through your anxiety and fear.
Take the pressure off.
Be with it all of it in a compassionate way.

This brings a peaceful acceptance,
from which clarity springs when it is time.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

EXPLORING HEAVEN OR HELL

Exploring Heaven and Hell

Your relationship will take you
to the heights of heaven and the depths of hell.

Both angels and devils live in your embrace
and move with you in your journey toward self-forgiveness.

No relationship is going to be free of struggle and turmoil.

In any relationship, there are inevitable ups and downs,
moments of connection and disconnection.

How you hold the moments of disconnection
is as important as how you celebrate the moments of connection.

Do you use the challenges of the relationship
to look more deeply at yourself?

Or do you run away and hide or threaten to leave the relationship
every time there are misunderstandings?

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

REFRAINING FROM PROJECTION

Refraining from Projection

Nothing derails a relationship faster
than frequent excursions into guilt and blame.

Don’t forget the discipline you must bring
to your own life.

You are not always happy.
When you live alone, you have moments
of sadness, self-judgment, fear, anxiety;
you have feelings of unworthiness and failure.

You need to ride out these moments
and hold these thoughts and feelings compassionately
or you cannot function in life.

What makes you think that you won't have to do
the same thing when you are in a relationship?

The truth is you need to be even more compassionate
and responsible when you live with someone else.

That is because your egoic tendency
and that of your partner will be to blame each other
for your negative emotional states.

To refrain from this kind of projection
is one of the greatest challenges of relationship.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

DEMONS RISING UP

Demons Rising Up

Living with another person
often pushes your deepest buttons
and sets off unexpected explosions.

Your fears simply cannot stay hidden.

It isn't always pleasant business.
If you expect it to be pleasant all of the time
then you will be sadly disappointed.

Every relationship moves from romance to realism,
to the depths of despair.

Couples fall from grace just as individuals do.

Couples who face their demons
and walk through their fears
win a decisive battle against their own ignorance.

They integrate the shadow,
transcend the limits they have placed on love.
and learn how to love without conditions.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

COMFORTABLE WITH YOURSELF

ACCEPTING DIFFERENCES

Accepting Differences

In any relationship there will be times
when you do not agree with your partner.

The question is: how well
do you handle your disagreements?

Is there room in your relationship
for both of you to have differing opinions,
as well as interests and activities that you don’t share?

A relationship that requires total agreement and sharing,
is an unrealistic one.

That is far too much to expect
from any relationship.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

THE REWARDS OF LIFELONG PARTNERSHIP

The Rewards of Lifelong Partnership

As long as there is growth and honesty in a relationship,
it is worthy of our commitment.

That doesn't mean that it's perfect.
Even in the best relationships,
doubts and fears continue to arise.

However, mature couples learn to hold
their doubts and fears with compassion.
They learn to be patient with each other.

In time, the hard shell around their hearts
begins to crack open.

Where fear used to hold them back,
they learn to take baby steps forward.

They learn to stretch out their hands to each other
when one or both of them falter.

They learn to heal together and to trust each other.

And then they experience a gentleness
born of the struggle,
a sweetness born of the pain.

Then there is a twinkle in their eyes
when they look at each other.

It isn’t the same twinkle that was there
when they first met.
It is a different one.
It tells of their journey
through fear and projection
into the heart of acceptance and love.


From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

LETTING GO

Letting Go

When something in your life is not working,
you try to fix it. Then, if that doesn't work,
you may pretend for a while that it's fixed
even though you know it isn't.

Finally, you realize that your heart
just isn't in the job or the relationship.
That's when you are ready to let go of it.

Letting go is an act of substantial courage.
There is always some degree of pain
in the release of someone or something
that once brought you joy and happiness.

You will have to be patient and mourn the loss.
But when your mourning is over,
you will see things differently.

As the old dies, the new is born.
The phoenix rises from the ashes of destruction.
If you stay centered in your life
while the fire burns around you,
opportunities you never could have dreamed of
will begin to reveal themselves.


From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

SAY TO YOURSELF - NEVER AGAIN!

Say to yourself...NEVER AGAIN!!! Never again...will I find myself in this situation...or beat myself up because of my past mistakes. NEVER AGAIN will I give up on my dream because of what someone else has said or because I've been rejected or experienced failure or a setback. NEVER AGAIN will I not give my all or go all out, or represent myself as a powerless weak victim because of some tragedy that I have experienced.
NEVER AGAIN will I go back to a life, a lie, a relationship, or a situation that doesn't represent the best in me. I am better than this...bigger than this...stronger than this! Don't let a temporary situation cause you to make a permanent decision about your possibilities and your future. Keep pushing forward despite the odds or how you feel at the moment. Give out but don't give up!!! Dare to be GREAT!! You have GREATNESS within you!


LES BROWN

"THIS IS A PROBLEM I WANT TO HAVE."

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. 

Why is this? 

Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. 

But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. 

And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. 

Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

"I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.” 

― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

CLEARING THE AIR

Clearing the Air

Do not go to sleep angry with the people you love. 

Do not let the sun rise or set without making peace.

Nurture your relationships. Be ready to repudiate
thoughts and feelings that can only injure and separate.

Each day, negative thoughts and feelings must be cleared.
Find ways to soften and forgive when you feel angry or hurt.
Admit that you went into fear. Surrender your need
to be right and to make the other person wrong.

From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE

You are stronger than you think you are. It does not matter what you are facing...a lost relationship, job, bankruptcy, foreclosure, health challenge or financial situation. You have the power in you to create it all over again from scratch. It does not matter how old you are. Do not beat yourself up. It is natural to feel sorry for yourself or feel frightened and want to give up. It does not even matter if the people that you thought would have your back have deserted you. You are still breathing. You are still here and you have the power to win.

You are more powerful than you think you are. Remind yourself of this. Stand up within yourself. Gather your mental, emotional and spiritual strength. Speak from deep within your spirit and your soul. Take back your power Say..."I will survive. I will thrive. I am coming back. Giving up is not who I am. I will stay the course, and persist until I succeed." You might have to do this while down on your knees, praying, crying, screaming at the top of your lungs. Resist the feeling of being overwhelmed, powerless or being a victim. You will survive and thrive again!!! You have something special. You have GREATNESS within you!


LES BROWN

EMOTIONAL AND SEXUAL BETRAYAL

Emotional and Sexual Betrayal

When love is mutual and you and your partner
are surrendered to each other emotionally,
sex is uplifting and sacred.

But when communication in your relationship
becomes careless and shoddy,
when time is not taken for one-to-one intimacy,
your relationship becomes a shell
in which you both hide.

Energy and commitment disappear from your union,
and sex becomes an act of physical betrayal.

It is not surprising then that one or both of you
may look outside the relationship for satisfaction.

Infidelity is a symptom of your emotional disconnection
from each other.
Unfortunately, it involves another person in the dynamics
and makes it more difficult
for healing and reconciliation to take place.


From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR LOVING YOU?

Who is responsible for Loving You?

Don't focus on how other people treat you.
Focus on how you treat yourself.

If you are in an abusive relationship, for example,
don’t focus on the abuser’s behavior.
Look instead at your own. 

Ask yourself if deciding to be with an abusive person
is a nice way to treat yourself.

Be responsible for loving and taking care of yourself.
Don't try to give this responsibility to anyone else.

Tell yourself "I am responsible for loving myself.
If I don't love myself, no one else will.“

If you are one-pointed in this practice,
you will stop betraying yourself.

And when your self-betrayal comes to an end,
you will not attract others who abuse you.


From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini
www.paulferrini.com

A NEW RELATIONSHIP PARADIGM

A New Relationship Paradigm

 The only way to avoid co-dependent relationships
 is to befriend and honor the Self. 

Then you can build the relationship 
on the truth of self-coherence. 

This is the new paradigm of relationship. 

In the old relationship paradigm, 
the commitment to self is vitiated 
by the commitment to other. 

In seeking to please the other, self is abandoned. 
Since the abandoned self is incapable of love, 
this creates a vicious cycle of attraction and rejection. 

All genuine relationship must be built on the foundation 
of our acceptance and love for ourselves.

 That is the primary spiritual gesture, 
the one that opens the door to real intimacy. 


From Everyday Wisdom by Paul Ferrini