#lovingcompassion

What a wild couple of months... reflecting on my last day at Mission High School with @smorrislawsonartsf when I got the opportunity to dive head first into this fan painting... I thought that eventually we’d be back to finish the project with the students. Wondering if people will take a moment to reflect on how this time will impact us as a whole and what we can do moving forward to be even more generous, loving, and kind. #art #arteducation #lovingcompassion (at San Francisco, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAf4gFIhwL9A3e2kn9p6c6KtcnDyEDq4fNllyw0/?igshid=1xebimcyj7tye

Leonard and Moira had been married for 16 years.  Moira used to say that Leonard was her soul mate, the one who was cosmically provided to complement her core self.  Leonard had described Moira as his missing half, the one who completed him. Moira would reflect that when she would get overwhelmed with anxiety about the future, Leonard’s lighthearted way of cruising through life’s challenges would rescue her.  When she was paying the bills and worrying about whether there would be enough money next month, Leonard would grab her around the waist and dance her around the room, singing at the top of his lungs about love being enough forever.  She would laugh and find herself believing him.  Her heart felt lighter.   Leonard would say that Moira was the solid ground he needed to keep from floating away on a sea of unrealistic thinking.  He’d be spinning fantasies about starting a worm farm in Kansas, when she’d remind him that he hated worms and was already committed to his new import/export business.  He’d pull her into his lap and, laughing, thank her for saving him from himself. At least they used to say these things.  Now, they were more likely to be found complaining about each other. She’d complain that she couldn’t get Leonard to take things seriously, that he refused to worry about anything.  She was anxious that he was never anxious.  Couldn’t he see that life required worrying about things if you were going to prevent disasters?  In fact, she thought about such things a lot, convinced that to worry about bad things happening was the way to prevent bad things from happening.  It made her crazy that Leonard was just sure that everything would be fine.  When she wanted to double their life insurance, he argued for spending that money on an anniversary cruise to Greece. Leonard was feeling so stifled.  He could feel middle age coming on and was itching to do exciting things before the opportunities were no longer there for him.  Why couldn’t Moira see that life was for living and enjoying?  She never seemed to enjoy herself, spending her “leisure” hours poring over retirement planning materials.  If it was up to her, they’d be old before they were ever young.  He’d come up with wonderful plans for things they could do together (backpack through Europe for a month over the summer, spend a summer on a kibbutz in Israel, spend Christmas and New Year’s in Tahiti) and she’d shoot down all his plans.  It was demoralizing and he was increasingly resentful. What happened?  How did they get from where they started out together to where they were now?  How did they change so much? The truth of course was that they hadn’t changed much at all.  She simply became more thoroughly what she had been all along—serious, anxious, a planner and worrier, grounded in realistic thinking, future-focused, and committed to her security.  These were all qualities that he had either valued or found endearing.  They hadn’t changed, but his feelings about them had. He had become even more of a dreamer, the eternal optimist, unconstrained by realistic thinking and energized by ideas that pushed the edge of the envelope.  The very qualities that had attracted her because they pulled her out of her stolid realism were now provoking tremendous anxiety in her.  He hadn’t changed in any substantive ways, but her feelings about his core qualities had been tempered by the stressors of everyday life. But when they were guided to talk about what they admired and respected in each other, about what they relied on in each other, they reconnected with what had attracted them to each other in the first place. She admitted that if he didn’t insist on some fun in their lives, she’d do nothing but work and worry.  And she volunteered that he was still the most fun and funny person that she knew.  She said that he was the only one who could make her laugh when stupid and frustrating things piled up on her.  She said that sometimes she thought that just maybe he might be right that life shouldn’t always be so serious.  And she admitted that she’d loved the cruise to Greece and would treasure those memories forever. He acknowledged that left to his own devices he’d be broke, that he would never have been able to open his own business, and that if she didn’t worry about everything, he’d be forced to pay attention to the details of grown up life, which he hated and wasn’t good at.  He knew that he wouldn’t end up eating cat food during his retirement, that they’d be able to travel together to beautiful places, and that he’d be able to buy that sailboat of his dreams because she fussed over their investments. They stopped, mostly, trying to change each other.  She’d still occasionally try to get him to worry; he’d occasionally attempt to sweet talk her into ignoring realistic issues.  But mostly they smiled tolerantly at each other’s idiosyncrasies, knowing that these very things were why they really were meant for each other.  They came together, gradually but lovingly, to forgive each other for what they weren’t and to love each other for what they were.  

I say it a lot but it's worth repeating! See the love, be the love, spread the love! Once you find that deep, endless pool of love within your being share it with everyone that crosses your path ✌ from ️ @astral_vegan . . #love #loveyourself #meditation #bethelove #seethelove #lovingcompassion - #regrann