Friends are Always Beautiful

To the people who love you, you are beautiful already.
This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings
but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran

In true friendship, one can express
anything and everything without feeling ashamed
or afraid of being rejected.
- Aparna Chatterjee

Real love is accepting other people the way they are
without trying to change them.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Appreciate your friends.
Grant them the freedom to be lovable, but fully imperfect.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Accepting Our Friends' Uniqueness

Like Angels

Appreciating Friends

Encourage Me
      

Gratitude for Everyday Blessings

It is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives
for which we should be particularly grateful.
They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness --
just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it;
just warmth and shelter and home folks;
just plain food that gives us strength; bright sunshine on a cold day;
and a cool breeze when the day is warm.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

Gratitude is an attitude that hooks us up to our source of supply.
And the more grateful you are, the closer you become to your maker,
to the architect of the universe, to the spiritual core of your being.
- Bob Proctor

Food is our most fundamental material blessing.
Use each meal as an opportunity to feel gratitude for all the blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Today's Grace:
I give thanks for the blessings of this food
as a symbol of my gratitude
for all the manifold blessings of this life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Know that You have been Blessed

Life Really Is Good

Gratitude and Life

A Thankful Heart
      

Native Americans' Day 2018 (concurrent with Columbus Day)

Like slave-owners Washington and Jefferson, Christopher Columbus was a person of his time.
Moreover, like all persons of all times, Columbus possessed qualities to admire, and qualities to condemn.
In the century following Columbus' arrival in the Americas, 95% of the 70 million Native Americans were either killed by Europeans, or died from diseases brought by the Europeans.

Do not judge another person
until you have walked a mile
in their moccasins.
- Native American (various wordings)

It is not our differences that divide us.
It is our inability to recognize, accept,
and celebrate those differences.
- Audre Lorde

There is no neutrality.
There is only greater or lesser
awareness of one's bias.
- Phyllis Rose

Most everything in life
is about our point-of-view,
rather than any absolute.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Your Point of View

Through the Eyes of Another

Why I Choose to Believe that Others are Never the Cause of My Unhappiness

Byron Katie - The Work - No one can give you freedom but you
       

Selfless Service

Do some selfless service for people who are in need.
Consider the whole picture, not just our little selves.
- Nina Hagen

May we make the world a little kinder
and more compassionate
by reminding ourselves that often it is the random acts
of kindness that most benefit all of us.
- Anonymous

Our compassion and acts of selflessness
take us to the deeper truths.
- Amma

Today's affirmation:
I choose the higher road -
the path of charity, acceptance,
love, selflessness, kindness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Open Mind - Open Heart

Empathy

Through Each Other's Eyes
    

Your Own Unique Self

You didn't get stamped out of a mold. You aren't a "black person" or a "white person," a "fat person" or a "skinny person," a "bad person" or a "good person." You are a highly complex human being with emotions, beliefs, capabilities. Each day you face challenges to your health, relationships, finances, and world-view -- and every day you respond to those challenges in ways which are unique to you.

Honor and love all of your unique self. Never diminish yourself with self-applied labels or categorizations.

Everyone should carefully observe
which way his heart draws him,
and then choose that way with all his strength.
- Hasidic Proverb

Really rejoice in being yourself.
Have your own drumbeat.
- Kim Cattrall

Today's affirmation:
I am a unique expression of the universal fabric of creation.
I celebrate both my uniqueness and my connection with all that is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: First-Rate Self

Accepting Our Friends' Uniqueness

A Mile in Their Moccasins