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Love, boundaries, Speaking Strong and poetry
My wonderful and insightful coach suggested I write poetry last Friday, and his suggestion set me on fire. By Sunday noon I had a couple of new poems and two poetry buddies to exchange our inspiration with. We send each other our poems and tell each other what we like about them. I'm like a kid in a candy store. It connects me with my self and my soul.
Since this is Valentine's Week, I'm going to take license and share
some poetry with you - as it relates to love, boundaries and Speaking
Strong. I'll start with love.
Everything I know about love I learned
from my cat
We learn a lot about love from our pets, and poetry can capture the
essence of what we learn. This poem is about patience and persistence.
Many people are interested in PowerPhrases for quick fixes. But PowerPhrases are really about the greater long term good. That is illustrated here.
Lessons from a cat
A thousand times she asked for love, and was each time pushed
away.
And yet she kept on asking as if this would be the day.
As if today he wouldn’t mind when she crawled up on his
lap.
As if he’d let her stay with him all curled up in his lap.
As if the hand she coveted would give a sweet caress.
As if her ploy to draw him out would this time find success.
Each day she asked the question – will you love me sweetly
now?
And each day his rejection grew gentler somehow.
Each day his firm resistance became just a little less.
And every day his rigid “no” melted toward a yes.
She worked her feline magic until there came a day,
Where she slipped on to his cherished lap, and there he let her
stay.
Great love comes with patience and persistence over time,
I learned that from the master. From a powerful feline.
~
Words are powerful things. PowerPhrases are at their best when they leave you touched by love.
Have a wonderful week of love and openness. And if there are some words that have opened your heart, please post them here.
Boundaries
Love can’t last without boundaries. And boundaries are vital
for the workplace too. Many of the questions I received lately deal
directly with the difficulty sensitive people have setting boundaries. If
sensitive people don't set boundaries, insensitive will set the tone of
relationships.
I wrote a poem for a woman who asked me a boundary question this week. She reworked it with her own words and created her own version. This is my version.
I wrote it for “Jane,” but I also wrote it for myself.
Undefended
If you tell the truth and no one cares, is it still true?
If you feel shock that no one shares, what should you do?
If there’s a bull inside your china shop
that has you quite alarmed
And there are precious fragile items that can
easily be harmed,
And if the guards that should protect you
have
come to work unarmed,
Then it’s up to you to give what’s true its
due.
~
Everything I know about boundaries I
learned from my neighbor's dog
Otis taught me how I can change a relationship by holding
others to a higher standard. Otis is the neighbor’s dog. He would
bark at me and jump on me. I started ignoring him when he acted out
and he stopped acting out. This dog that I did not like has become my
hiking buddy, and we are the best of friends - simply because I stopped
feeding into his bad behavior. There’s a poem in that story too. But
I haven't written it yet.
This week, care enough to hold others to a higher standard. If you allow behavior that limits love, you just might be missing fabulous possibilities.
Talking about love
Jeffrey Armstrong knows a lot about love, and will be sharing his wisdom on Valentine's Day. Tune in to Clout, on Air America Radio, 8-10 EST Thursday. This is information you won't hear anywhere else, and if you're anything like me, it will open your heart as it has mine. (My husband wonders what I'm drinking, and he likes it.) You can stream it on line.
This Week in the World comment
PowerPhrase of the Week
It gives me a chance to love her unconditionally
My friend Norm is a saint. His divorce was finalized in December and he consistently runs into his ex with different boyfriends. When I asked if that was difficult, he said,
- It's good for me. It gives me a chance to love her unconditionally. I want her to be happy after all.
The amazing thing is, he means it.
Poison Phrase of the Week
Any words that separate you from love
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Reader Success Story
Poetry mends fences (repeat)
After reading your poem, I wrote a poem for my boyfriend. We had an argument, and I wanted to set a good tone for our conversation.
The discussion went great. Exceptional. Can’t believe how thinking before speaking and using PowerPhrases helped everything go very smooth.
Being apart for a couple of days really did help and talking about how to fix the problem instead of blaming helped us focus on finding solutions to the problems. I read him the poem out loud making sure he heard it the way I felt it. He did. He loved it and kept the copy I had in my hands. He couldn’t believe that I wrote him a poem. Overall, things are working out and from now on I have learned to think what to say without using poison phrases and fixing the problems instead of blaming.
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Issue
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February 13th, 2008 |
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SpeakStrong Definition
To express yourself both powerfully &
effectively;
to say what you mean,
mean what you say,
without being mean
when you say it.