The LightHeart Institute

Lisa Hill DiFusco

Emotions

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Emotions are our most common experience of being moved by forces seemingly beyond our control. As such, they are among the most confusing and frightening phenomena of everyday life. People often treat them as a nuisance or a threat, yet failing to experience them straightforwardly undermines sanity and well-being.

How can we begin to relate to emotions in a more direct and fearless way? Can we ever befriend our emotions and accept them as part of us? Why is emotion so hard to come to terms with in our culture?…

…If we could let ourselves feel just what we feel, instead of reacting against it, condemning it, or trying to manipulate and suppress it, perhaps we could develop greater confidence about facing whatever life confronts with.

 

Excerpt from Awakening the Heart by John Welwood

Self-acceptance

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Book-Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?
The proper nourishment for personal growth is a loving acceptance and encouragement by others not rejection and impatient suggestions for improvement. Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, not in the atmosphere of rejection. We have said that personal growth resembles physical growth: all the energies and tendencies are there.
But there is in most of us a civil war that stunts our personal growth. It is our inner struggle for self-acceptance.

Excerpt from Will the Real Me Please Stand Up? by John Powell, S. J.

Getting to know YOU!

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Book-Take Time for your Life by Cheryl RichardsonOne of the most important aspects of extreme self-care begins with reestablishing a relationship with yourself – becoming familiar with your needs and desires; essentially, getting to know you. Since most of us spend far too much time on the needs of others, we lose touch with the most important relationship of all – the relationship to ourselves.

Excerpt from Take Time for Your Life by Cheryl Richardson

Rule No. 6

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Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apologetic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peters,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously.’ ” “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?”

“There aren’t any.”

Excerpt from The Art of Possibility, Rosamund & Benjamin Zander

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