People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime….When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person.

When someone is in your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed…They have come to assist you through difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support…to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually…

They may seem a GODSEND…and they are…They are there for the reason you need then to be.

Then without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.

Sometimes they DIE…sometimes they walk away…sometimes they act up…and force you to take a stand.

What we must realize is that our need has been met and granted. Our desire fulfilled. Their work is done…the prayer you sent has been answered…and NOW it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a season…because your turn has come to share, grow and learn. They bring you an experience of PEACE or make you LAUGH…They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy…BELIEVE that it’s REAL…But only for a SEASON.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons. Things you must build upon in order to have a SOLID emotional foundation…Your job is to accept the LESSON. LOVE the person and put what you have learned…TO USE…in all other relationships and areas of your LIFE…

It is said that Love is Blind and Friendship is Clairvoyant…

Thank you for being a part of my life…Whether you are a REASON, a SEASON, or a LIFETIME.

My happiness is me, not you.
Not only because you may be temporary,
But also because you want me to be what I am not.
I cannot be happy when I change
Merely to satisfy your selfishness.
Nor can I feel content when you criticize me for not thinking your thoughts,
Or for seeing like you do.
You call me a rebel.
And yet each time I have rejected your beliefs
You have rebelled against mine.
I do not try to mold your mind.
I know you are trying hard enough to be just you.
And I cannot allow you to tell me what to be—
   for I am concentrating on being me.
You said that I was transparent
And easily forgotten.
But why then did you try to use my lifetime,
To prove to yourself who you are?

Have you ever sat and cried, disturbed and lonely in a strange place in a strange city, longing for family, your dog, your own bed? Have you ever had to leave home for good to earn a living, but it didn’t feel good at all? have you ever watched a house you used to live in get torn down? Or painted an ugly color by the new owners? Have you ever moved into a brand new office much better than your old one and felt out of place and uneasy? Have you moved the furniture in your living room and felt confused for days not knowing why, because you really like the new arrangement much better than it was before. Have you finally taken the trip to Las Vegas, Europe or Asia, delighted with everything you see but  counting days until you can look at your own front door again?

People are so mobile for their own reasons: adventure, education, better living, exploration and so many more. I, myself did it to escape the life that I didn’t like. To find myself where I belong and be more comfortable. But being here for all these years, I must say that I’m not really there yet. There are things in this life that I am still searching. Where?…I don’t know. I still feel that sometimes I don’t belong here and longing to be back to where I came from. Or be in a place that I feel a real HOME.

*Places are important. Place is how you define your sense of space - of what is your space. you know how you feel in your own space.* Life is secure. Your own responses are predictable. I lost the space that I thought I have. I am suffocated in my own space… No ventilation…Vanishing sign of life like a fog disappearing as the clearance of a day. Lose a space that means "HOME" to you and your whole psychological system may be askew, sometimes much to your surprise or shame. Is this something to be ashamed of? NO - I am like every other creature of nature. I like to know my own territory, proclaim my own boundaries - if not to the world, at least to myself that I am INDEPENDENT.

A lot of moving around can upset the system. Your body might let you know how little you like physical changes, even intellectually you pride yourself on being easy-going and persuasive. Think of all the little secret griefs that accompany every exciting move or trip. Subtle griefs, not ones that you would call out loud by name. You might think of them as stresses or difficulties in adjustment. But something quietly important to you has been left behind. If it’s true that you are feeling some unspecific and illogical sadness, find out what it is about the old place that holds meaning for you. Recognition makes letting go much easier. The new places, after all, might be better, in their own ways, given a chance - given new meaning.

Things change. No one stays the same. You were once young, grown-up and in a spur of a moment - Aged. Life moves. We move with it or die. But there are natural resistances within us; even organisms born to change - fight it. From the safety of sameness, we confront the possibility of change, with fear, tension, then yielding—–letting be. We grieve for change, yet we grow through change.

*Alla Bozarth-Campbell Ph. D.

We all know what it is to lose oneself to a dream. And when the dream is lost, that part of ourselves we invested in the dream also seems lost to us. the dream is broken, and something inside breaks too. The dream could be for so many things - or for one very special thing. A secret wish for ourselves. A private longing. A hope we may always hold sacred. How especially bitter is the death of a special dream. How betrayed we feel by a dream that shaped us and now leaves us stranded in the wake of its failure. Perhaps it was always nothing more than illusion. Perhaps it never had a chance. Our goal was too lofty. We had an unrealistic notion of life, of ourselves, of a special someone who was not after all what we had imagined. No matter. How it hurts to let this one go, to give up a dream!

     I believe we can only live by keeping our dreams alive, and if our dream dies, we must search down inside for the seeds of another. Not all dreams are based on illusions. Every lovely reality was once someone’s dream that was loved or longed into being. You yourself may exist because you were once someone’s dream. We all may have been spun into life because the Heavens dreamed us so vividly and loved us so much we were simply yearned into material being. we owe our dreams everything. When we die, we owe them recognition and acknowledgment in their passing.

When we lose a loved one to any way, we lose a sense of belonging. We need to feel that we belong here, and that we have a vital part in life as it unfolds. We belong in our own lives, and we belong in other people’s lives as we touch. Each of us has a need and a right to enjoy intimacy with others. How painful is this loss of closeness, rightness and belonging when an intimate physical bond with another being is broken. The nature and depth of the loss depend on the nature and depth of the bond. We can feel it on a friend, a spouse, or lover, a child a place, a pet or other fellow creatures. The whole city was grieving over the loss of those beautiful, stately old trees that was blown down in the seawall of Stanley Park during the last storm. We all feel cheated and violated for we all enjoyed the particular relationship we had with the admirable and ancient trees. No one owned them, but we all belonged to them. In a sense, we have been orphaned and we need to comfort each other.

Lovers and spouses share a particular intimacy that is violated by any form of separation. Sometimes the violation occurs long before the actual biological cause, as in the case of prolonged illness that separates one mate from the other and breaks the flow of intimacy between them. When a loved one is yanked away from us suddenly without warning is a kind of amputation of the soul which must be endured.

Even such enormous wounds heal, though the loss remains and is real. In either case, there is no choice but to work through the pain, to remember the joyous gifts of life it offered and to wait. Wait as long as it takes. Healing comes, both to those stricken and to those who grieve. Healing may take a form of physical recovery or of death, the ultimate healing. In grief, healing may help us make peace with the meaning of life.

i feel empty
i feel frozen
i feel small, smaller and smaller
i feel buried alive, put to sleep
i feel dead
i feel numb
i feel nothing.

i feel myself under water, unable to move or breathe or see light
i feel myself in a place with no top or bottom, a place with no walls and no         protection
i feel myself trapped in a burning room
i feel myself shredded
i feel myself on fire.

Should we stay or should we say goodbye
Walk away or give it one more try
What a waste to let our dreams just fly
And as the days go by
We’ll always wonder why.

Are we glad to find one day we’re free
Is this what we really want to be
Brand new lives, we need to have so much
It really is quite tough
When love is not enough.

Tell me why did we find each other
Only to part ways in the end
Tell me how we learned to love each other
And tell me why two people have to change.

Was it pride that made us drift away
Hurting words we should not even say
Hold my hand and look straight in my eyes
If we can’t say goodbye
Then we’re worth one more try.

I didn’t realize that I was getting the best lesson in the world in perception from the Liebes meines Lebens. I have to bring it up because he is a great man. He taught me how to savor the wine-isn’t that nice? And it always amuses me when we are sitting in restaurant reminding me to take it easy drinking the wine and just slowly savor the taste and enjoy. The waiter comes up and asks, "Would you like to taste the wine?" He says, "Sure. Thank you." So the waiter puts a little bit of wine in the glass, he picks it up, sips, puts it down and says, "Marvelous!’  It could be vinegar!

"Wine is a ceremony - it’s almost a sacrament." Wine appeals to all the senses. First hold it up to the light. Look at the color. Different wines have different colors. And then the bouquet - oh, my word, the smell! When you swirl it a bit and put it under your nose, and get the wonderful aroma of the grape and everything that is mixed together. Then - just think you’ve swirled it, you’ve looked at it, you’ve smelled it - and then the moment of putting it on your tongue, just on the tip because the tongue is so sensitive that it has another thing to say - here, and then it goes further back, it has another thing to say - the message is different. You start on your tongue, run it back in your mouth. Only then can you really tell if it is right or if it isn’t right. It is such an outrageous multifaceted experience.

I used to not bother about wine, but appreciate the fact that now I can go to all the events and not feeling left out in a wine tasting. Got it all from this experience and the abilities to sense, smell, to taste - wondrous kinds of things that were always there but never discovered.

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure out my place in this world and now I think I’m exactly where I should be. . .

Being a Mother…happened too soon I think. Life is busy. Since conception to birth and raising them. All free time goes to my kids. It’s the most basic and most profound experiences to see them grow, watch them learn and react to everything around them. They give joy and laughter to everybody…my two X’s. Looking after my X’s is a huge responsibility and it can be very difficult at times to manage my career and still be the mother I wanna be. It tests  my nerves and willpower and it makes me feel so lonely sometimes that i hardly have time for myself to figure out who I really am but I have to be much stronger for them.

Being a Nurse… I live in a kind of self-loathing where I never give myself much credit of what I accomplished. Even when I passed my nursing board exams in the Philippines and Canada, I kind of dismissed it as LUCK…It took me this long to really  realize that this is the career for me. I’ve gone from pizza maker to dish washing, serving and butt wiping to housekeeping kind of job, and you name it… to an RN (Real Nurse) I dissuaded myself with all my power that I don’t belong here and my heart wants another field. But hey, I’m destined to care for people (sick in mind, heart, body and soul), friends and families and needy ones. Showering them tender loving care warms their heart and they gimme smile that melts my heart deep within. Something that money cannot buy. There in lies my true nature of life.

Now…I’m coming to accept my life for what it is. I just hope to wake up one day and be happy to where I am and who I am. It’s all gonna be good.

A strangled smile fell from your face
It kills me that I hurt you this way
The worst part is that I didn’t even know
Now there’s a million reasons for you to go
But if you can find a reason to stay

I’ll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what’s at stake
I know that I’ve let you down
And if you give me a chance
And give me a break…
Believe that I can change
I’ll keep us together whatever it takes

I know you deserve much better.

He said "If we’re gonna make this work
You gotta let me inside even though it hurts
Don’t hide the broken parts that I need to see"
He said "Like it or not it’s the way it’s gotta be
You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"

But remember the time I told you the way that I felt
That I’d be lost without you and never find myself
Let’s hold onto each other above everything else
Start over, start over!

Courtesy: LIFEHOUSE