Rob Tourtelot
- Much as working with a piano teacher is not, fundamentally, about learning songs, but about using songs to push yourself; I now think of our projects, not as ends in themselves, but as means to help us improve the underlying process and ourselves. This helps put me in the right frame of mind. I want this essay to turn out well, of course. But the g... See more
from On limitations that hide in your blindspot
- “... This aliveness is always here. We don’t have to work to get it. It is ever-present. Seeking enlightenment is a form of postponement, postponing what can only be realized now ...” ~ Joan Tollifson
from Can We Embrace "Yes Buts?" Painting The Sidewalk Joan Tollifson - Stillness Speaks by Joan Tollifson
- I find great value in the spaces between us, when we enter those spaces with curiosity and respect and love.
from "The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something keenly alive on the desert even though it is vast and empty and untouchable—and knows no kindness with all...
How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.
from Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
Typical open-ended questions are variations on “Tell me more” and “Help me understand better ….”
from Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Roger Fisher
Most of the time there is a gap between the life we know is possible and the one we live. That gap appears as restlessness, pain, longing, fear, irredeemable loneliness, your skin crawling—some uncomfortable state.
from Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life by John Tarrant
Indeed, when Kant's friend Funk died, he found himself forced to confront what is in some ways the ultimate example of the instant of change: the fact that all that we love will pass, including life itself. Even more poignantly, the very ineradicable nature of that constant, irresistible erosion of the present is what endows our life and the attach
... See morefrom The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton
- What can we do when we are forced to face death? Do we continue ignoring it or do we weave it into our understanding, possibly creating a more nuanced appreciation for both the fleetingness of life and its interconnected nature? I find that it is this very activity that can arm us with the tools needed to continue living in a world that no longer p... See more
from After mom died, I found great comfort in a medieval Andalusian tale | Psyche Ideas by Veronica Menaldi