Teamwork

 

Personal wealth has never been important to me. What is important is the team of people I work with. George Davies

"No man is an island," wrote John Donne. We all need each other. When I was younger I could be a maverick, not sensitive to the needs and concerns of those around me. It wasn't exactly "my way or the highway," but it did verge on arrogance and spiritual snobbery. I'm not proud of those years. With recovery came teamwork. I couldn't get sober on my own. I needed a partner. I found God and other sober people. Slowly I found Leo. Teamwork is Say Yes to Your Spirit.The more I seek to live the spiritual life, the more I realize it is based upon a connection to others.

Today I'll dance with anyone!

On this day of your life

 

I believe God wants you to know ...   ... that no financial crisis can overpower the peace of God.   At a time of extraordinary uncertainty, people are turning everywhere for answers. How about to God? Those who know God as a living reality in their lives are finding peace in the midst of turmoil, security in the face of fear.   It's all, in the end, about priorities. Life priorities. Do your priorities have to do with the body? Or with the soul?

The Power of Not Knowing (OM)

 

There is freedom in admitting that you don’t know something, as that allows for a new learning experience to emerge. There is wisdom in not knowing, and it is a wise person who can say, "I don't know." For no one knows everything. There are many types of wisdom -- from intellectual to emotional to physical intelligence. Yet, even deemed experts in their fields do not know all there is to know about mathematics, yoga, literature, psychology, or art. It is a true master who professes ignorance, for only an empty vessel can be filled.  There are many things in life that we don't know, and there are many things we may have no interest in finding out. There is freedom in saying “I don’t know.” When we admit that we don't know something, we can then open ourselves up to the opportunity to learn. And there is power in that. We can’t possibly know everything. And when we think we do, we limit ourselves from growing and learning more than what we already do know. A person who can admit to not knowing tends to be more intellectually and emotionally confident than someone who pretends to know everything. They also tend to be more comfortable with who they are and don’t feel the need to bluff or cover up any perceived ignorance. People can actually end up appearing more foolish when they act as if they know something that they don't. We would be wise to respect people who freely admit when they don't know something. They are being honest, with us and with themselves. And we, too, should feel no shame in saying, "I don't know." In doing so, we open ourselves up to the unknown. We can then discover what lies beyond our current levels of understanding. It is the wise person in life that answers questions with a question and inspires the pursuit of internal answers with a funny face, a shrug, and a comical, "I don't know."

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 775

 

• ·       “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, “Go to the Limits of your Longing”

  ·       “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” ~ J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

  ·       “Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” ~ David Whyte, “Sweet Darkness”

  ·       “here is the deepest secret nobody knows
  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
  and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
  i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)” ~ e.e. cummings, “i carry your heart with me”

  ·       “She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it’s there, because it can’t hurt, and because what difference does it make?” ~ Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

  
  

Wisdom Quote

5 Ways A Narcissist Will Argue With You

 Today I’m going to share with you 5 of the ways that narcissists argue with you. There are many more ways, but these 5 are the most common ones, that virtually every narcissist uses when confronted.

It’s important for you to know this, because …

Narcissists are not team players.

They don’t like to be questioned or challenged, and they will take arguments to incredible lengths (and depths) rather than be held accountable.

Narcissists play very dirty when engaged in any of these 5 ways they argue with you.

Let’s check them out …

 

Number 1 – Projection

This really is the most obvious of the 5 ways that narcissists argue with you.

When confronted the narcissist will immediately get defensive. You will feel it coming. The narcissist is working out how to launch their attack on you and turn this into you being the bad person.

What follows is the narcissist purporting that you have it wrong. You are unreasonable. YOU do the things that you are questioning or reproaching the narcissist on. The problems are YOUR fault, and the way you treat the narcissist is abysmal.

What hurts terribly is the narcissist’s assertion that you are a terrible person with zero integrity.

Or a nut job, or unstable … or whatever the accusation is.

You will be shocked when this happens because it can be so sudden, calculating and cruel. The reaction is designed to hit your most vulnerable emotional parts.

The projection can be cold and chilling, or hot and raging.

Either way, it is devastating.

All because you questioned something, or tried to stand up for your rights.

 

Number 2 – Excuses

Another extremely common defence mechanism within the 5 main ways that a narcissist argues with you is excuses.

These are “reasons” excusing his or her behaviour. Often these “reasons” involve “projection” meaning blaming you for what they did.

These could be things like, “I did this because you make me angry and I wanted you to feel what it is like to be treated like this” or “I had an affair because you are so cold sexually towards me” or “But I did say or do that” … (when they never did).

Excuses are all about avoiding responsibility, remorse and repairing the damage.

Fundamentally when a narcissist uses excuses the message is, “I will not be held to account, because I did nothing wrong.”

This completely minimalizes your experience of being abused, deceived or betrayed by the narcissist who refuses to admit it.

 

Number 3 – False Apology

When a narcissist says, “I said I was sorry, what more do you want?” or “I’m sorry … but … (projections or excuses)” these are not apologies.

A decent, honest and genuine apology is a full admittance without excuses and defences and a pledged commitment followed by action to restore faith and trust.

Something like, “I am sorry, I know what I did and how that hurt you, and you have my word that I will not do that to you again” is a good start. Then the required action to back it up is the proof.

An apology is not just words. It is dedicated restoration and goodliness in action.

When arguing with a narcissist, you will feel incredibly disturbed when receiving apologies that are not apologies. You know when you feel these words – because of how they land emotionally in your body ­– as to how insincere they really are.

Then, of course, you will push for a more genuine apology, because you can’t believe these hollow words. You don’t feel safe!

It is then that the narcissist will turn on you and accuse you of not trusting them, having issues from your past that mean you are too damaged to trust people, or that you are comparing him or her or other people, and all sorts of diversions to try to get you to drop the necessary boundary of not accepting an apology unless it feels genuine.

Then, of course, the narcissist will re-offend and you find yourself back in the same place all over again.

If someone is not genuinely remorseful through word and action, then POINT BLANK they are not safe to be in a relationship with.

 

Number 4 – Refusing To Stay On Topic

When the narcissist is under scrutiny, he or she is an expert at taking the argument off-topic.

This is when they will bring up things about you that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Then a particular conversation becomes a three-ring circus, going down all sorts of paths that make your head spin.

This could be comments about you speaking in a condescending tone, or using confrontational body language.

Really, the narcissist may throw at you any little nasty nugget that they have been harbouring against you, no matter how unrelated.

The narcissist may even drop the bombshell about how he or she has been considering leaving you or has fallen out of love, or that he or she has decided something is going to be taken away or withheld from you.

The narcissist can use emotional distress – the destruction of your deepest desires, or the triggering of your deepest fears, against you, without conscience.

Why does the narcissist use this tactic? It’s very simple – to punish you for attempting to hold his or her insecure fragile ego, to account.

 

Number 5 – Pathological Lying

Narcissists lie … a lot. They lie to secure their own agenda, and also because their reality is so twisted they may actually believe their own pathological versions.

The narcissist you are dealing with is likely to be an expert liar because he or she has been doing this from a very early age. A narcissist can look you straight in the eye and tell you blatant untruths without flinching.

In arguments the narcissist is capable of pathologically lying to save face, making excuses that aren’t real or granting you false hope and confidence in them that is not warranted. A narcissist can also gaslight you so that you distrust yourself and hand your power, rights and boundaries away.

Lies to cover up their immoral activities can be examples such as: “I love you, I would never do that to you” or “It was this person who did that not me” or “This person (or everyone) says that you are the problem, and they know who you really are” … or “You were seen by someone I can’t name who reported that you were up to no good.”

Narcissists also, once the cracks have appeared in your relationship, tell people big lies about you to discredit you.

Predominately everything that the narcissist vouched you do, is what he or she has been up to themselves.

 

In Closing

I want you to get very clear about the answer to this question …

“How do you effectively argue with a narcissist?”

The answer is, “DON’T argue with one!”

You can’t talk sanity to insanity.

You can’t make what is disturbed sane.

You will no sooner get a narcissist to face up to things humanely, responsibility and honestly than you would get a crocodile to roll over while you scratch it’s tummy or get it to fetch a ball for you.

Narcissists can’t communicate healthily – because they simply aren’t wired that way, it doesn’t compute for them.

This is not about you trying to get a narcissist to understand or validate ANYTHING about you and life, it is about YOU understanding yourself and your life.

This means pulling away to create boundaries, power and truth, and then generating your life from THAT place inside you.

Then a narcissist can’t rope you into their three-ring circus – their nasty playpen where everything goes and all bets are off.

By doing so you will discover just how powerless this person is to affect you anymore, or devastate, abuse or violate you.

I can’t tell you how much this is true when you detach and turn inwards to heal to empower and elevate yourself above this UTTER rubbish and nonsense.

Would you love to learn how to do that?

Moving Towards the Light (KB)

 

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Karen Berg
MAY 29, 2022

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This article is also available in: español | Português Brasileiro | italiano | français

This article on the portion of the week was originally published in 2019.

Everything seems to be attracted to the Light. Ships for centuries used the starlight and moonlight to be their guide and compass. All creatures, great and small, rise by the sun each day. The sun and its light are one of life’s necessities. The light provides vital nutrients and energy. Without it, human life, plant life, and all life, could not exist. We are bound and interconnected to physical light, as well as spiritual Light. We cannot live long without sunlight, food, or water, but we cannot live for even a second without the energy and Light of the Creator. Spiritual Light sustains us to our very core. This week, we move towards the spiritual Light that not only sustains us, but fuels us, heals us, and even blesses us. The new moon of Gemini enters this week, and we zoom forward towards the Creator, amplifying our spiritual journey and providing blessings and our essential Light. We finish with the final week of the Omer, a period of spiritual elevation, and we move towards the greatest and brightest Light of the entire year. 

"We are all searching for something."

Our portion for the next stage in our journey is Naso. Naso is unique as it is also read during the holiday of Chanukah. This is an indication already that this week we are able to connect to an extraordinary reservoir of spiritual Light. The portion of Naso is attached also to the holiday of Shavuot, as it is read always before or after it. This year, we read Naso on the eve of Shavuot. Shavuot is the day on which the Torah was given to the world. The Torah, when given, revealed so much of the Creator’s Light and essence that it was as if the sun itself came to the earth. All forms of darkness were removed, including the removal of any sickness and even the removal of death itself. Shavuot and our portion of Naso both contain this totality of Light, and with it the power of immortality.

Another thing that is unique about this year is that we have the new moon of Gemini this week, creating a spiritual trifecta. The new moon of Gemini offers the influence of our new ruling planet Mercury, which is, by no coincidence, the closest planet to the sun. This is an incredibly powerful week ahead when we have the opening to ask the Creator for the Light to help us remove our obstacles, help solve our challenges, purify us, and radiate us with blessings. Naso revisits the Tabernacle’s inauguration in which all the tribal chieftains gave individual sacrifices and gifts. It is via these sacrifices and gifts that we are able to remove the self-imposed blockages that have shut out our Light prior. With the gift of Naso, we now generate, untethered and unrestricted, the entire life force of the Creator, bringing us another step towards the removal of pain, suffering, and even death itself. If there is ever a time of year that the Light is turned on, it is this week.

"We move towards the Light that sustains us, fuels us, heals us, and blesses us."

We are all searching for something. We search for comfort and pleasure. We search for answers. Some search for the Creator. While others devote their lives to searching for their purpose in this world. We are all on a search for more. Kabbalah, with its tools of Light, offers to us that more that we hunger. Every being on earth craves the Light, physically and spiritually, even if we may not realize it. The Light is what makes us feel at peace, content, fearless, and joyful. It is through our acts of love, sharing, and giving that we are able to draw more of this essential Light into our lives along with the blessings that accompany it. Our life’s journey is to take the necessary actions to turn on the Light. This Light is the very secret behind our success and fulfillment. This week, the cosmos turns the Light on for us. We are given the Light of the new moon of Gemini, the portion of Naso, Shavuot, and even Chanukah. A powerhouse week of positive energy that assists us in leaving behind the hardships of the Omer and welcomes a new time period where the Light dominates. This week we read not only the inauguration of the Tabernacle, which drew down vast amounts of spiritual Light to our world, but the inauguration of a four-month period of positive energy. The Light is coming and we zoom towards this beneficial and merciful energy of love.

This week in your meditation, go to the beautiful rising sun. If you are able to see a sunrise, it is not something you will easily forget. The moment of sunrise is perhaps the most positive moment of the entire day. Take yourself to the early morning and see the dark horizon slowly illuminate. Little by little, the sunlight increases. You can feel the warmth begin to build upon your face. The birds sing. The animals emerge from their dwellings, but most importantly, you feel something stir within you. The Light is coming and with it comes a new day, new hope, new opportunities, and new blessings. You are inspired to be like the Light and your heart opens as wide as the sky to love. It inspires you, renews you, and restores you. It is the Light of the Creator that removes the darkness in our lives. The time has come to welcome this positive force into our lives and into the world. The time has come to move toward the Light. 

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 774

• ·       “It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer…and everything collapses.” – Colette

  ·       “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” - J.K. Rowling

  ·       “No matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn’t stop for your grief.” - Faraaz Kazi

  ·       “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering.” - Helen Keller

  ·       “I’ll be okay…just not today.”

  ·       "The indispensable first step to getting the things you want in life is this: decide what you want." - Ben Stein

  ·       My Say Yes to Your Spirit involves ambition.

  ·        "Worship is intended to anticipate the better life ahead and then to reflect these new spiritual significances back onto the life which now is. Prayer is spiritually sustaining, but worship is divinely creative."

  ·       The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something. - Naval Ravikant

  ·       If today were the last of your life, would you do what you were going to do today? - Steve Jobs

  ·       Lord, as I grow in age, may I also grow in wisdom and tolerance.

  
  

Wisdom Quote

 

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Gaining Wisdom

 

IT ALSO BECOMES QUITE THE ADVENTURE.

We really didn't want to meet life on its own terms, and then we found that we had to, because there really wasn't any other way. Over time we develop so many tools that now it's a pleasure and a privilege to.

Wisdom manifests-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly-from repeatedly working with life on its own terms.

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 773

 

• ·       “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” - Anne Lamott

  ·       “Losing my mother at such an early age is the scar of my soul. But I feel like it ultimately made me into the person I am today. I understand the journey of life. I had to go through what I did to be here.” - Mariska Hargitay

  ·       “We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves, as we were, as we are no longer, as we will one day not be at all.” - Joan Didion

  ·       ‘You’ll get over it…’ It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?” - Jeanette Winterson

  
  

Wisdom Quote

 

Nature

 

I can go through anything a day at a time, a moment at a time with the faith and the knowledge that my Higher Power is guiding me to peace and security. - Ruth Fishel

No matter how badly we feel, it is only for now. When in deep pain and confusion, we often think it will be that way forever, that we can never feel better. When in the depths of darkness and despair, it can be hard to remember there will be light again. There are so many lessons in the cycles of nature. Sometimes they may sound trite but truth is really that simple. Dawn does follow night. Always. Spring does follow winter. Always. No matter how dark the night has been, no matter how harsh the winter has been, we, too change, as do the seasons.

There is no winter harsh enough to withhold the promise of spring. - Karen Kaiser Clarke

On this day of your life

 

I believe God wants you to know ...   ... that there is a Chinese proverb: Great doubts deep wisdom. Small doubts little wisdom.   Never stop doubting, never stop questioning, never, ever assume you have all the answers. Having all the answers kills the question itself; renders it lifeless -- and you, too...   Keep looking, keep seeking. Never, ever find it all. Because when you find it all, you deny that there is more. And there is never not more.

Controlling Behavior (OM)

 

People that want to control others are, at the core, consumed with their own fears and projecting those fears onto others We all know what it’s like to want to be in control. In some ways, exerting control is an important survival skill. For example, we have every right to be in control of our own bodies and our own lives. Taking control in these cases is empowering and necessary. Controlling behavior in the negative sense comes from a tendency to reach beyond our own boundaries and into the lives of others. Many people do this with the rationalization that they are helping. This can happen with parents who are still trying to force their grown children into behaving in ways that they find acceptable. It can also happen when people try to control their partners’ behavior. If you have control issues, you will see that in one or more areas of your life, you feel the need to interfere with what is happening rather than just allowing events to unfold.  Almost everyone has at least one situation or relationship in which they try to exert control. This often happens because someone’s behavior makes us uncomfortable. We may feel it makes us look bad, or it embarrasses us. For example, if your best friend tends to drink too much, you might spend an entire party just trying to prevent her from doing so. This is different from directly confronting her about the problem and allowing her to decide what she should do. Controlling behavior generally goes hand in hand with an unwillingness to be direct about what you want, as well as an inability to let go and let people live their own lives. If you are the one that is controlling, it’s probably because you feel as if you are out of control and it scares you. Try to pick one thing you could just let unfold without any control on your part. Examine how it made you feel both before and after, and examine why you wanted to control the situation. It is hard sometimes to allow others to be who they are, especially if we feel we know what’s best for them and we see them making choices we wouldn’t make. However, if we are to be respectful and truly loving, we have to let people go, trusting that they will find their own way in their own time and understanding that it is their life to live. Just reminding yourself that the only life you have to live is your own is the first step to letting go.