Paulo Coelho
In one of my books (The Zahir), I try to understand why people are so afraid of changing. When I was right in the middle of writing the text, I came across an odd interview with a woman who had just written a book on – guess what? – love.
The journalist asks whether the only way a human being can become happy is to find their beloved. The woman says no:
“Love changes, and nobody understands that. The idea that love leads to happiness is a modern invention, dating from the late 17th century. From that time on, people have learned to believe that love should last for ever and that marriage is the best way to exercise love. In the past there was not so much optimism about the longevity of passion.
“Romeo and Juliet isn’t a happy story, it’s a tragedy. In the last few decades, expectation has grown a lot regarding marriage being the path towards personal accomplishment. Disappointment and dissatisfaction have also grown at the same time.”
According to the magical practices of the witchdoctors in the North of Mexico, there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for our having stopped making progress. A trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, disappointment in love, even a victory that we fail to quite understand, ends up making us act cowardly and incapable of moving ahead. The witchdoctor finds and gets rid of this “accommodating point”. To do so, he has to review our life and discover where this point lies.
Why?
Because, according to the story that we were told, at a certain moment in our lives “we reach our limit”. There are no more changes to be made. We won’t grow any more. Both professionally and in love, we have reached the ideal point, and it’s best to leave things as they are. But the truth is that we can always go further. Love more, live more, risk more.
Immobility is never the best solution. Because everything around us changes (including love) and we must accompany that rhythm.
I have been married to the same person for 30 years, but methaphorically speaking, the same marriage contains several “new marriages” during our relationship. Our bodies and souls changed, and we are still togeher. If we wanted to keep on as we were in 1979, I don’t think we would have come so far.
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Throughout my life I have had my share of accommodating points and changes. I always took each of these stages as a challenge or an adventure. These events have made me who I am today.
When I look at my life in the here and now, I could be tempted to say that I have reached the limit of all limits; with my advancing age, unfavourable circumstances and a progressive illness.
In the past, my life appeared ‘sensational’ and full of drama and action, but now I have to accept that my life is on a different course and is rooted in the nitty gritty of everyday life. There is nothing extraordinary about it! Luckily I am still working, and enjoy being with young people, which helps me to remain positive, and with Gods help and blessings I am finding that what Paulo says in his post is true, We can ALWAYS go further. “Love more, live more and risk more.”
So brave and so true!
Thank you!
Love,
Ivana
Dear Theresa,
A young soul with a young heart, just like my mother. I levitate towards your positivism, now I understand.
Love
Monica
. the whole cosmos in our body are also experiencing the same thing, constantly moving to achieve perfection. immobility means to destroy
I’m not sure what love is now.
I’ve been in relationship for 6years and totally believed in him. Even when he told me we cannot be together anymore I still belived that he loves me. I’ve never able to think anyone loves me more than him.
Now he left me, and found that he got new girl before we break up. I can’t find any reason I believe the love true.
It’s frustrated.
hello,
dont be frustrated.
The best relationship in life is the one you have with yourself and God.
Pray hard and see, and maybe this man was to show you what real love is, and what is out there for you.
But do not give up.
Do not give up on yourself.
Keep beliving and love yourself..love yourself deeply.
Get close to God too He has a perfect plan for you, you need just to ask.
I do view that love is the source of happiness.
Unconditional love, that is.
Whatever change in the flow of life, Unconditional Love remains; and it is the only source of true happiness. Bliss!
:)
I wish I agreed with you that there is such a thing as unconditional love between lovers. It exists, perhaps, between a mother and child that she has grown to love deeply through the years, but I doubt it’s existence anywhere else outside of literature.
If someone you love dearly steps on your heart repeatedly, eventually nature will put up walls to protect you from harm. This is much as the pearl forms around the grain of sand in an oyster.
Very good topic,
but its good to keep in mind that these changes come when you need to be a better person for yourself and to others in your own particular situation. marriage is not always the answer, but at some point in life most people need somebody to share their new experiences with. That doesn’t mean they are only happy because they are married, but because they are growing in their own situation. Lets say I’m single: but I can’t leave alone, so i keep looking for that one person or moment that will make me happy and everyday ill try somebody new or something new, but in the end ill be alone, and i most likely wont have accomplished half the things i would’ve if i had someone loyal by my side. But lets say i think oh no i can find somebody later in life, but most people ( not to say everyone) gets so hurt throwout their lives that they cant find anyone. We have kind of a timeline for certain things in life, and now a days these timeline is being confused by things that only last moments and not forever. If you keep living life through short moments in the end you only have the littler pieces and most of the time we are not able to pull them together into a full painting…Keep that in mind!
Angie,U have very interesting point of vies.Thx for
sharing.
Hello Paulo, it seems as if it’s been a long time since you’ve been here, everybody loves you when you show yourself, good to see you :)
Dear Paulo,
I read the post right after you published it, and the first version was longer… When I read the paragraph about the person who learns how to play the guitar but after reaching his limit he decides he does not want to learn the guitar any more… I had the feeling that it is written about me. I could never put it into words as good as you did, and now that paragraph is gone. Please please send me those sentences so that i can enjoy them once more..
In return I promise I’ll take more risk!!
Many thanks!
Talmee
I found that paragraph very good and helpfull too and was confused this morning when it was gone and wondered why would you take it away?
❉♡❉ with love
Mr. Coelho,
Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts with you and others!
In your novel, The Zahir, the obsession is juxtaposed to the degree of sacrifice, suffering and raw honesty the protagonist is willing to undergo in order to come out on the other side as a new person capable of genuine and heartfelt love.
It seems to me that all other dimensions to love must be seen through the eyes of sacrifice. Otherwise, relationships are an exercise in self-interest.
Through sacrifice and suffering can true change occur in oneself . . . only then can love truly exist and survive the test of time.
All my best,
Daniel
Hello Jessica,
you write that Romeo and Juliets love was true. Yet all stories about Romeo and Juliet begin with Romeo chasing after many a girl, in love all the time, in love with live, not with the girls he bestows his graces upon…. It’s stubbornness that made him hold on to Juliet, not love, stubbornness and horny hormones…. and then fate came along with a temper, – and history took it’s cause.
They could have decided to act, they didn’t need to go along with the drama, – but they didn’t! Thats the tragedy: they didn’t choose to be king of their kingdom, masters of their own lives, – and that’s the drama. The message is not what it seems: Shakespeares message is that you go to the dogs if you don’t get a grip on things. You can play as much as you like as long as you don’t hurt anyone, you can hurt but you have to accept the consequences of your deeds, you can’t run away and death will always win if you play with it.
i didn’t write this, of course to offend you or anything, i just don’t think it’s as simple as it seems and that needs to be said.
Romeo and Juliet is one of the ancient stories of the world, it came to existance long before Shakespeare put it into a play.
When i first saw the play i thought ‘hey -why doesn’t Romeo call Juliet by her name?’ Then i realized he wasn’t in love with her yet, but with another girl still. Undying love – Romeo pledged on stage. Then he saw another girl and forgot all about his undying love, and the next one was called Juliet. And again he came on with the undying love pledges…..
Juliet had to live up to a lot of expectations, – born into a position in society that doesn’t allow a girl much freedom she felt treated as an object by her father. Her father had arranged a marriage for her. Stubborn as she was and determined to show them all she was someone to take into account too.
She gotten all mixed up with her young admiror by then. Had she been allowed any contact with men she would have known he was nothing but a Romeo, – someone who loves all the girls. She would have had at least a little experience with the nature of such men.
Then Romeo had his temper tantrum that led to the fatal accident of Julia nephew. Instead of standing up for his deed he fearded blood revenge, the old an eye for an eye principle. He could have gone to see a judge, he could have stood up for what he had done, but he didn’t! Instead he fled.
And poor innocent Juliet dreaded the upcoming marriage she hadn’t chosen for, so she fled as well. Afraid as they both were, death seemed an easier solution than facing their angry parents….
i just don’t see where the love is in that play, must be me…….
Me parece que el cambio en el ser humano debe ser integral porque cuando se experimenta un cambio parcial nos retraemos o limitamos sin lograr avanzar y aqui es donde surge el ACOMODAMIENTO a lo facil, monotono y aburrido._Pero si tomamos el CAMBIO como el motor que nos mueve para hacer todas las cosas diferentes(a nuestro beneficio y a los que nos rodea)alcanzaremos evolucionar y asi llegar a lugares inimaginables.
los limites no existen… somos nosotros mismos los que nos limitamos, si tu dices no puedo…no podras!!!
la verdad la creencia que solo podemos crecer hasta cierto punto es patetico e irocico. cuantas personas creen en esa basura, la vida es un constante cambio somos como un constante rio que fluye las apariencias enganian, y nos reinventamos constantemente, el amor y las relaciones evolucionan y cambian en ocasiones se hacen constantes y en otras terminan.
Fascinating,
I think one cannot add anything else to this deep analysis.
This was such an enlightening blog. The way you talked about your own marriage changing many times helps me to understand that my own long marriage of 32 years, which just ended, ended because my husband was unable to accept change, he completely feared change, and became completely immobile in the face of it. There was nothing I could do to change this, all attempts at it only made him angry with me. Added to that was his anger that I changed.
My heart still cares for him, and I hope that some day he can lose the fear of living. Thank you for your insight. It is invaluable to me.
32 years is a long long time and i wish you strenght and patience.
What thought provoking words. Thank you.
Tale=Take..ah decidement!;D
I really like when you write that way,it breaks something in me,cause it breaks something in you.You are not that icy person you often seem to me,please don’t tale that wrong,we shouldn’t apologise for what we feel even if it doesn’t seem appropriate/right to some.Far one of the best thing I ever read from you,words about that Real You.
Thanks for sharing,have a nice day
Love
Candie
Ah, me falto mencionar,
te escribi un mensaje en tu canal de Youtube
Espero te des el tiempo algun dia de poder leerlo.
Seria un grandisimo honor Paulo.
Un abrazo :)
woow, creo que soy la segunda latina o al menos que habla español que escribe por aca, me sorprende que no haya mas,
habra que pasar tu blog a todos mis amigos para que lean
de vez en cuando cosas buenas, no tonterias jaja
Respecto a tu entrada, me gusto bastante.
Tienes mucha razon, el miedo a lo nuevo nos consume
y nos limita en cuanto al resultado que podamos obtener
de probar cosas nuevas, talvez sera bueno, talvez malo,
pero hay que arriesgarse, y tener la satisfaccion
de haberlo intentado.
En el amor es muy normal el miedo a cambiar,
que te deje de querer tu pareja o tu a el/ella.
Pero creo que debe haber un cambio en ciertos
puntos de la misma, la monotomia es la muerte lenta
de una relacion, mas que nada en los matrimonios,
lo se claramente por mis padres, estan enredados
en su monotomia y rutina que ya no disfrutan su vida
como pareja ni singularmente, es triste.
Y yo creo que necesitan un cambio, y drastico
para salvar la relacion.
En fin, yo que se, apenas cumpli 18 años,
aun no se mucho de la vida.
Pero te agradezco que sigas guiandonos con tus libros
y haciendonos felices.
En estos momentos estoy en las paginas finales
de “Once Minutos”
y que buen libro eh, buenisimo, me tiene enganchada,
tengo 2 dias leyendolo y ya voy a acabarlo,
paso dia y noche leyendolo en mis ratos libres,
y seguro acabandolo voy a leerlo de nuevos varias
veces mas.
Saludos y un fuerte Abrazo Paulo
que la vida te llene de bendiciones y felicidad.
Espero visites mi ciudad (Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico)
un dia y nos llenes de sabiduria.
Hola Cindy, yo tambien hablo Espanol, soy de San Cristobal de las Casas Chiapas. Bienvenida, este blog es muy bonito y te encuentras con cosas muy agradables.
A mi me gusta comentar en ingles porque es el idioma comun del mundo. En fin, seguimos en contacto y tomate tu tiempo para leer porque la lista es larguisima y a veces hay que leer varias veces para poder “comprender” lo que Paulo escribe.
Un abrazo y saludos’
Monica
‘Free the books’
‘… When we are not obliged to possess an infinite number of objects our freedom is immense.’
‘My intention is not to save the forests or to be generous, it’s just that I think a book has a life of its own and should not be ordered to lie still on a shelf.’
‘So let the travel books and other hands touch them.’
Paulo Coehlo on Wired n.01 Italy
The idea was conceived by combining these words and ‘Pay It Forward’. In the movie there is a boy who is given a homework that is finding an idea for changing the world, his is to help 3 people and each of them must do so with another 3, which in turn they counter with other 3 and so on. What I’m doing is giving me 3 books to 3 people, including you. Return the favor to give other 3 different to 3 different people, writing in your own way, on the back cover, how it works. We release books.
FREE BOOKS.
This is what I’ve written on my now ex books, and today on 10/02/10 started what I call ‘Free Books’. Inform you of this to you to share and ask for thanks, so if all this started in my mind was also thanks to you.
I believe it. And I am excited at the idea that this small gesture can do so much. I do not know how it goes, although I hope with all my might that involve as many people as possible because the books are important and since I discovered I could not do without. In any case, the 3 ‘thanks’ that I received today made my day unique.
‘Good times for a change …’ sang the Smiths and now is the right time to change, have the strength to jump into something new to grow together, then just thank you.
Stefano Giordano
Stefano,
So how do you start with this book exchange???
Monica
I hope you will agree. The best things in life are the simple things, joy and love. This Joe Cocker means and me too!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTzhxyRoe9E&feature=related
El miedo al cambio es una de las cosas que nos paralizan en la vida. Esto ocurre mucho sobre todo en nuestra adolescencia cuando en ese momento de la vida somos tan vulnerables y muchas veces no entendemos los cambios que están produciendose dentro de nosotros mismos. Lo importante de tomar esta experiencia es encontrar a alguien o algo que nos haga ser conciente de lo que ocurre y que si podemos cambiar para bien. En mi caso encontre el Alquimista del Sr. Coelho y desde ese día siento que cambien y seguiré cambiando para bien.
Some thoughts:
Why is happiness so important? I once saw this travel program in which they visited a farm where they artificially bred four leaf clovers. The host looked into the camera and said: If you look like excesses like that maybe we should get rid of this dictatorship of happiness. I mean are you a pathetic freak for not walking around extatically all the time? It’s a similar thing with love, richess or fame. The role models are so bloody overpweringly skillful, pretty or well rich you gotta be pretty damn solid in confidence to handle the fact that you are constantly confronted with better.
I’m reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley now and well the society he depicts is dogmatically “happy”, but sadness and hurt also grow empathy stimulate creativity and in being part of the fullscale emotions, also a fundamental part of being human. I’m not holding any cry-ins, I’m just making the point that when the ideal one is confronted with isn’t realistic as in too simplified to be in any way possible and people lack the insight or instinct to fill in the blanks they give up on life as you gave up on football. This all has to do with conditioning by the ideals and role models we are confronted with in all media and creates the impression that if we can’t do as good as them we’re better off not bothering to try.
To de-condition yourself is a liberating experience, but after adding Marx to the equasion and his theory about capitalistisc imaginary needs, one does tend to conclude from a historical perspective we’re allready lucky to be surviving in relative comfort, all the rest is pacifying jibjab causing us to look away from the very very real and very very concrete world wide poverty gap, the allmight of multinationals and lobby groups and the very very real wars waged right now.
As is clearly proven by my little text here is that it’s very important what station you tune into.
PS As one can clearly establish after visiting a karaoke bar a personal liberating experience does not make you able to sing all four voices of bohemian rhapsody while drunk, that is one thing people should definetely stop trying.
some time in october i opened the door of the car i still owned then, and looked down into the grass to make sure there was no dogshit to step in. Instead of a turd i saw a 4 leafed clover. i picked it and went up to the schools fence, showing all the mothers my 4 leafed clover. Something about it felt uncomfortabel; when i sms’ed my lover about it he replied ‘lucky you’ and i felt as if he was being cynical, as if i were somehow wrong. Come on – i told myself, – this is not some hysteria, this is a 4 leafed clover and what is the chance of finding one anyway. But i just couldn’t connect with any heart warmth over My Luck, it felt nothing but cynical. A cheap pay-off, as if i got that but lost something way more significant in exchange, something i couldn’t grasp. Something like finding gold in the dessert when all you need is a sip of water. i still have that clover, and i know exactly where it is, but i avoid it. i don’t open the book it is in. i am lucky, born on a sunday, finding clovers, stumbling over horseshoes on the beach, dancing on dyonisian baccanales and knowing more about little than anyone cares to know. But what is luck if you can’t share it. It’s like burning sun or icecold wind: it’s just there, it comes and it goes as it always has, regardless of me or anyone else noticing it. That clover would have been there anyway, might have been there pricking up it’s pretty head season after season until my eyes feel upon it, and maybe it’s going to be there again next year. Luck itself just doesn’t mean a thing.
Why is happiness so important?
Funny how themes keep coming at you, rapid fire. This has been a big one for me lately. Most recently, a friend of mine who does a lot of work with the very poor and displaced in Southeast Asia said to me, “Happiness is a construct of the privileged.” She went on to describe how the dirt-poor, struggling people she is currently working with in Thailand are some of the happiest people she’s ever met – even though no one (including the people she’s talking about) would describe them that way. Once you give that experience a name, it seems, you feel obliged to hold onto it as if it were a thing, a noun, rather than a verb that comes and goes and flows in and around you. That clinging is the source of your suffering – which, I suppose, means naming is the first cause of suffering.
WOW Paulo!!!! Today felt different, I didn’t know it was this different. The energy around me feels different. My head was aching and my stomach was upset. The energy is flowing with such FORCE and INTENSITY. Even before reading the blog I KNEW. Thank you so much, our spirits are indeed connected through the love of the creator.
I am speechless……my spirit is growing in love and strength and it feels very good
Loveful and Joyful
Monica
fear of change – fear of vulnerability.. feeling exposed.
.. danger to prey…
I echo that!
Fear of change … I am now facing the era of change for me, and the biggest challenge is now going into that change “alone” … for each time, I did this in the past, I realize today that I always needed approbation, a companion, surroundings because I did not realize that I held that fear of change. Now, life places me before that change and asks me to believe in myself, to trust my intuition, to go live that moment that will help me to become more and more who I am and to follow the direction for me.
“Love changes” because all individual go through stages and change. The quest seems to tend to a unique goal, a unique kind of love that will be the One and that is stable, but in order to attain that Paradise, one goes through the learning of love, which makes love essence and meaning change on the path. The idea that in a sole relationship you can achieve that true love is something. For me it takes two, like you and your wife, that are aware, that accept changes, evolution, that pursue their growth, that are opened to where Life leads them individually. Because yes, I truly believe that here is a passage where one has to undergo its personal accomplishment, its personal legend. As I say often, we arrive one and depart one. For me it is a sole journey that is possible with a fraternity, which fraternity we will meet again. Growing with awareness brings one to revalue and reposition itself with was it taught being called “reality” and the true reality.
I truly believe in the wisedom of the witchdoctors of North Mexico, and many others, that a hurt in love, a carency, a trauma, etc …, in this life or past lifes can intervene to defend one from growing (be it a trauma or a false belief installed because of it or just transmitted from generation to generation). I truly believe that in order to develop our true creative potential, to free our soul in order that it low becomes the leader of our personality, our body, our spirit and be one need to always be aware of himself. Like Eckart Tolle says, become an Observer. Jung says that a child arrives as one, becomes divided and then that Life puts him one day, and I think many times, in the necessity to reunite, become one and that that is individuation process.
I am totally in accordance with the importance of reviewing our life in order to discover where the “accommodating point” lies for one. In AA, their spiritual way of living, there is an important Step, one that says to make each day an inventory of the moments and review, not in seeking in the situation, the other, the event the problem but coming back to us, why feel this, why judge that, why feel such unease, etc … and it is the path to finding the accommodating point.
For me, it happened at a so young age. Hearing each day the sadness of my mother who has to comply to a role which she had in her tongue no way of getting free, that woman could not dream in this world governed my man, that that destiny was to be mine, one day at a time my sense of being unique, important, having no sense in school since you do not need a degree to be a wife and a mother, to be a slave, to be the beast sacrified so the other lived and be happy. So what happened? Wanted to flee that despair and the fact that no dream was possible for me as a woman. Drugs … Stopped all … Then what … became the wife and mother and depression became the illness that wanted to send me a message that I did not understand. Alcool became my companion, flee. Divorce and desire to go against the messages of my youth … and learning, getting more and more free … All relations with man for me was a struggle, a relation of power, needed to dominate in order to live, or stopped living because of culpability and fidelity to rules that were not mine, but so well maintained in this world. So, for me, my accommodating point is to give myself the right to live my life as a human being being female, having a right to freedom, to be happy as a individual, to be nourished by a relation and not only by the one that gives.
The change I am facing is that … Life wants me to do it alone in order to gain forces, to break that link to all kinds of false believes pertaining to my identity, to my indivuality. I have to start by the most important love … the one for myself. Now, I know truly know that I have my God’s love for me, since He never let me go, and placed everything today to make possible for me to undergo the biggest change of my life … I could see all that is happening as curses, as a victim who has enough of difficulties, and challenges, but no, I see it as the greatest love of all … another step that makes the notion of love become more clear for me, more precise, more true.
Thanks Paolo. I really really liked to be part of your sharing as a soul. For having been without that kind of sharing for most of my life, it is one thing important to me in relation, and mostly with “authorities”, you which I consider the master, the guide which wisedom and travel I respect. I really appreciated being in relation with that intimate part of yourself. That is so important for me in a relation.
Love, Jojo.
Dearest Jojo,
Thanks for sharing a little bit of your soul, I admire you because you chose to be better and improve your life.
Love
Monica
Thank you for sharing, it is as if you have written my story, it feels good not to be alone in facing the changes.
❉♡❉ with love
FILM “Into the wild”- Sean Penn
…and he wrote just before he died: The happiness is real as if it is shared …
I like what you talk in your blog , Sophie , i also like this story:
” And now, I think that if I had to choose one memory it would be…
We were in my bedroom, playing. I don’t remember how you did it, but you broke the eye of one of my teddy bears. I got so angry with you and I started crying furious and sad at the same time. You just looked at me, and then you laugh! You laughed so loud and so amused. I started laughing too…
That day, I learned that things come and go… Nothing last forever. But why cry for something that was lost and we never can get it back? The best attitude is smile and feel happy because that “something” existed and filled you while its existence. And when you missed it, just think that something brand new and better will come!”
http://sophiasmy.blogspot.com/search?q=What+About+Sophie+
Thanks for quoting me :):)
I wrote that letter to an old friend of mine, childhood friend actually. I don’t see him for 10 years, and he was very important in my growth :)
Once again, thanks.
Peace and a hug
Sophie
Deeper or wider
Dear Hildegarde,
I like your quote, it is true we raise in love we don’t fall into it.
Relationships don’t have to be for life. Nothing last forever, we are not the same as when we were 20 years old, then the relationship changes accordingly. Sometimes we grow so apart that we need to part ways, but that is also part of the journey. It doesn’t means we have failed or that we have reached the limit – what it means is that it is time to broaden our possibilities and experiences and we need different people to do so.
All relationships should be embraced, whether they last or not – as you said, they are part of who we are.
loveNlight
Gabi
“Our bodies and souls changed, and we are still togeher. If we wanted to keep on as we were in 1979, I don’t think we would have come so far.”
I looked to him and I realized he was changed and that scared me. I thought “is this now the begining of the end?” I felt so sad and terrified, because I love him with all my heart, and I thought that once he changed, then I would be stuck in his memory and this love was going to destroy me. I felt like ‘saying goodbye’ to the sweetest thing that happened in my world.
But then I remember that I’ve changed too. And that doesn’t mean I have to stop loving myself, once I like who I am now, inspite I liked myself before as well!! And that’s why I’ve changed in so many ways, but my true inside was intact.
So I looked again to him. Yes, he was changed. But his true inside was intact too, he was there. I only have to discover the new things about him and fall in love over and over again. Keep the flame alive. And is not that hard… is something that just happens.
beautiful story Paulo.
I have a “professional” experience on divorces, and I can tell you that many times people divorces cause there are two different levels of growth (and change) between the two partners.
One usually sits down and stops searching, moving, “living” and the other, because of Life or because of his/her own choice, simply “let the time go”, without searching any other thing.
So,in the end, they have nothing in common, nothing to talk about, nothing to live toghether.
But this is our individual choice.
I still haven’t an answer for this, but yes Paulo, with yoour “arrows-words” you hit the point of the question.
Love.
Chris
Go with the wind of change – not like a drifting leave, but like a sailboat on his course.
“When we start out on a spiritual path we often have ideals we think we’re supposed to live up to. We feel we’re supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain – breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are – heightens your awareness of exactly where you’re stuck.”
~Pema Chodron
We are the ones putting ourselves down, setting the limits, afraid of failing.
Once we understand that everything changes (no matter what we do to avoid it), and embrace the change for what it is, then things start to make sense and life is not a burden anymore.
Thank you Paulo for sharing such personal touching post.
loveNlight
Gabi
hello Gabi, it ‘s good to know that Pema with her funny& wise little stories has so many more followers:)
You’re very right， although when we met nice change, that’s easy to accept , as to sad….., we really need time!because we are so affraid the sad , we even begin to not welcome the nice. That’s our nature!
In fact, when we recalled all the passed things in our life , we’d actually find: absoluletly no sad things! The present is just very perfect, only we can’t find it! That’s we searching and affaiding!
Beautiful story Paulo! People really need to keep this always in mind. We all need it.
But I was thinking about someone who in these moments needs it most. I’ll make sure for him and some others to read it. ;)
Tank you Paulo!
Love
Olta
Les relations sont des responsabilites qui demandent un investissement de la part de chaque individu.
Les gens, comme les saisons, changent.
Je ne sais pas si ils agissent comme des laches, peut-etre qu’ils se perdent dans les details.
Se remettre d’un coup inattendu et de ses blessures prend du temps. On perd son Nord et l’on cherche a tatons dans l’obscurite avant de retomber sur ses pieds.
Ca fait partie du jeu de la vie. Tu entends le message et tu t’adaptes au mieux… et oui, je crois egalement que l’on peut “aller plus loin” ..et que l’on peut “trouver un compromis”. C’est une question de volonte.
Beautiful love story. Changing a detail can bring in our life a whole chain of other changings, and growth too.
ajajja me reí con eso que escribió que dice que recibió de lo lindo…
a mi justamente me toca a enfrentarme a algo…lo más probable es que sea mñna, pero lo que dice es verdad. Cuando yo la conocí y nos alejamos aprendí muchas cosas estando lejos de ella (aunque debo reconocer que sigo estando un poco lejos, pero voy avanzando).Pero aprendí a ver la vida diferente y si, mi persona cambió…y tal vez la de ella también.
El punto es que me quedé estancado sin ir más lejos y probablemente lo que haga ahora sea mi límite…
a lo mejor, la magia está en que cuando uno llega a su límite, no hacer suyo el mismo límite, sino que cambie…
bueno, eso creo…
saludos!
In my opinion, if we all actually knew what are exact accomodating point was we might not ever excel..I think and believe that the power, determination and belief we have in ourselves to keep going, to try harder, to give more, to learn more will reveal an accomodating point within itself. I also believe that we can overcome ANYTHING, As long as we attack fear and embrace the truth, including not limiting any other ism. I certaintly mean no offense at all,and I hope your journey finds you well, in my quest to learn more I felt compelled to respond to your post..
ya paulo is write but i have had changed myself for so many things like my gf left me and i was so used to her(i could not imagine a moment without her ) but i changed my to progress further in my life.after changing myself so much i have lost my true identity and my dreams.nowadays i am like a part of air i change every moment because i had to change myself for alot things.
Gosh, Paulo! Why do you have to be so cruel on people like me who tends to avoid changes? :D
I’m so touched by what you wrote in this article. I think it’s true we sometimes stop at one point in life, due to many reasons. We just stubbornly choose not to move our feet for even an inch, while watching how the roads available in front of us are changing: from one branch to two branches, from two branches to ten branches, destroyed by flood, shaken by earthquake, becomes two branches again, then adds up to five branches.
At that moment, we are so busy thinking which one is the ‘right’ one. Or even, we simply refuse to think because it’s just too hard to do.
I guess that’s one of the point when we really need to be true to ourselves.
Thanks Paulo, for the constant reminder of how valuable our life is.
:)
change scares me. thinking about it makes me feel sad because i have to either let go of something in order to gain something. that for me constitutes change for the past 20 years of my life. though i know somehow, change also brings happiness and a sense of new warmth for my soul, im not as brave as i say i am to take the risk.
i do hate the fact that people change around me as well.
i hate the fact things have to end in ways they shouldnt have
i have to accept the fact that the only thing constant is myself.
i woke up with a Nelly Furtado song on Sky radio:
dust to dust, lovers to friends, all good things come to an end….
you don’t have to change, change just comes to you.
John 3:8
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it’s going. That’s the way it is with everyone born of the Spirit.
!
!
_ Let’s go with the wind !
Yes, Den Rod….and try to catch the Holy Spirit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnWYM9eUrZo
La donna e mobile!!!! ;-], dear Den Rod.
LOVE,
Thelma xxx
That’s the our life too, you ‘d never know where it is next step! Many times you think the life is it no change any more , you will get a surprise, sometimes nice sometimes not so nice the outside looks, but anyhow, as we accept, we’d find the studying in it!
Hello dear Paulo and dear freinds,
I liked very much what you have posted today here, dear Paulo, for us, all… About love…about going beyond our limits….
I know that everything you said it is true… I love what you said about you wanted to learn to play guitar… I started learning to play piano… 2 years ago… and the same as you.. I have abandoned it now…. Why? For the same reason as you… the fear that I can not be as good as the others were or are…. And I could never play well and beautiful enough to make someone tom listen… I realize that this is a childish thing to say …but deep deep in my heart I did this! I have to reconsider it now… because I love playing piano and singing… but….
The lady you told us about she is right! Love change us! Love transform us… I can not express how mush it does… think a bit only of the first months when you are are so much in love and you are feeling so light and you can see the other almost everywhere you go… because you take it with you in your heart… it is so beautiful…. But, the woman thought that love should leads us to happiness… it is not that strange to me…
I personally believe that when we are in love we are happy… I say in love… and this means the love is reciprocated… However, I agree that sometimes we may be in love …but we encounter difficulties as Romeo and Juliet did… and then… it is up to us to overcome out fears and inhibitions and to find the courage to fight for out love, for what we think it makes us happy… I don’t think that personal accomplishment can me achieved necessarily through marriage….or your partner/husband /wife love… because for all of us “personal accomplishment” have different meaning…
I give you an example… if I want to have a successful career and I am placing all my hopes that I will be able to achieve that once that I am married… I am telling you that I may be very disappointed… The reason for to people to be together in a communion as a marriage is because they will want to have children someday and their children need a family… a mother and father…
Also, being married is like a promise we make to the other half that we will always be there for him or her… and will never leave… Marriage is blessed by the priest in our orthodox religion and implicit by GOD… and nothing can grow and develop more beautifully then something that has GOD’s blessings… Maybe some of you who are not religious don’t believe what I am saying… but that is ok! Maybe I will come back to explain more if you would like..
Ahhh… so beautifully written… incapable of moving ahead…. I agree totally with you… why?.. Because…now that my scares from being in love so many times… and still not finding my true love, dissapared… I am feeling STUCK! I don’t know what else I can do..
I am here…in the middle of you.. with so many friends.. still incapable of loving as I did before…with my heart open, withoug being afraid that it may hurt …again… I think….this is the point that stop me making progress! The fear of disappointment.. the fear of trusting.. in someone who can not love me from the heart,….
But.. who can review our life, as You said, dear PAULO?… Who can do it?.. ‘cause I can not find anybody who knows me better then I do!… Is it possible to be me that one?..
I liked what you said about yourself…. Being young and fighting — wrong reason… of expressing yourself… But you were young and everybody does mistakes when they are young… and it is the best to learn from your own mistakes! As long as it is still…NOT TOO LATE… which..in your case it wasn’t too late!
Your advise to us, dear PAULO, is to don’t stop… never stop…not even when we feel as we cant go any further…we cant make any progresses IN LOVE and in our career, maybe too.
“LOVE MORE, RISK MORE!”. I love what you said! It is really beautiful!
If everything around us changes… including love…. I think that we change too… and then we shouldn’t be afraid…. Your example, your own marriage of 30 years being together… it is wonderfull and make me think, indeed that I always wanted to find that person with who I can spend my life.. and never get tired … lol I am joking… but, yes, to can spend my life… and still feel like the first day together… To you this is a surprise… but it shouldn’t.. because if time have an imprint on us, on our love… then we are not the same as we were 30 years ago… and then, maybe we love in a different way… and our feeling changed too.. they are more of belonging… and finding our nest… and inside of it, our soul… through the eyes of our love, being that a husband … or wife…
I love talking about love..in general…I think love is my favourite subject… and if I were to write a book… it will be about love… though I started a history book 2 years ago… I still didn’t finished it because I started something else what I really enjoyed writing … another 2 books about LOVE…
Anyway.. I hope that I will have the courage to step above that limit point …and to finish my books to can offer them to my readers and dear friends… as all I wrote I would like to share with all of you, hoping that will make you as happy as I was when I was writing it…
Thank you again, dear Paulo for posting this beautiful and inspiring BLOG…
Wish you well and send my embrace to all our friends from here and from all the Virtual platform we shared on Internet.
With love and friendship, Gabriela Romaria
xxx
Amazing point raise on `what we`re told`! I`ve been challenging that a lot lately, or trying to understand where do we get the thoughts and things we tell ourselves.
when I was 18, because I kept gaining weight my mom took me in front of a mirror and told me that the body can`t adjust anymore, if I haven`t lost weight by now my body will never look young again, stretch marks never go away, breasts will never be firm, etc… I realized later she was just trying to scare me into losing weight, but the obtained effect was different: I gave up on my health and immage. It`s not her fault, she only passed along what she knew out of love. But why did I accepted it, without a challenge? I only did something ten years later, TEN! And in a discussion with her I told her there are researches that show the human body adapts, and the more you take care of yoruself the better and younger you feel. I told her the breasts thing isn`t true, and I was amazed to see her just accept it without questioning me.
I don`t know if there is such research, or what is true about the body or not, but I was just shocked to see hwo easily she changed a lifelong belief because I opposed it with such conviction.
she`s believes at 55 she can be healthier opposed to everything she believed her entire life, and I know now that just because someone is conviced of a thing does not make it true.
we have a mind, and yet we have this weird habit of using others before ours.
The event in my life that stopped me making progress was abandonment terror (based on my past , abandoned at birth and adoptive Father dying when I was a baby and adoptive mother ill and hospitalised soon after for a long time)..its OVER now (recently) I have done a trojans work on myself to ovecome this and finally Yes I have triumphed but there are losses my darling Zahir whom I didn’t change soon enough for I have lost these past 3 years but I have high hopes ,
love always ,
Breda
…. don’t be too hard on yourself, perfection is an illusion and being the perfect you is as well. Loosing 3 years? And you were in them? You did what you did and what needed to be done.
Thank you for posting this Paulo. Without knowing it, I have reached an accommodating point in my own life at the moment and I’ve been here for the past 2 years. I’ve known I was unhappy, but I didn’t really know why and what the cause was. As I was reading your story I had one event that happened around that time flash through my mind and I think I’ve finally realized exactly why I’m in the situation I’m in. I don’t think I’m quite over it, but perhaps if I actually face this issue in my head, I can finally get out of this rut.
The last couple of days I have been reading about healing. Some of what you say here of the witchdoctors seems similar to what is said about shamans performing healing. Similar to what you call the accommodation point, it is suggested during incidents like these, accidents, traumas, emotional turmoil, part of our soul leaves a person, and a person cannot be healed till this part of the soul returns back. Sometimes we need help to get over being stuck in some painful experience, and yes through new positive experiences, we can turn the accommodation points around, and as the cat; have nine lives!
hi heart !
what is all this talk about, we needing to grow continuously. things happen. if one feels stagnated, stuck, is ill at ease, then surely one needs to go and find that accomodation point, but when u are healthy and happy, why bother about growth, if one maintains one’s awareness, if one is not lost, growth happnes and we can be a witness to it, but why live all tesnsed up for growth.
love
aditya
I am still struggling with my fear of change. I have goals and dreams, so many things I want to accomplish in my life. Yet whenever I start down a new path I find reasons to avoid it. I wonder if it is necessary to know what my accommodating point is in order to move past it. Or can you overcome that hurdle with out knowing what it is.
You need to find that point.. you need to understand yourself… and all your fears, dear Stephanie… to know from where they are coming from…
PS. I am sure you will smile at me… later, saying that you finally succeeded!xx
Love to you, Gabriela Romaria
In my case, I would like to know. Not to dwell into the past, but only to satisfy myself. So that I won’t go into the same question over and over again – which sometimes is just another excuse to avoid taking the new challenging road ;)
… you are only human, isn’t it enough to discover the world you’re living in? Like what you see and feel it? Thats richness! Live is not about reaching the top, it’s about the long winding path and looking at it’s views.
Yes, Stephanie, you can move toward change without knowing that point, identifying where you want to go (even if just in perspective), and taking steps to get there. It’s a journey, and along that journey you may uncover that point, at a time when you are ready to embrace it, understand it better, not let it set your off your path. Padre Ceohlo’s books have been one of my guides. I also worked with a very good life coach, and now coach others along their paths. If you are open to growth, change is inevitable. Much love, Kelly Connor, Life Coach
Creo que he llegado a muchos puntos de acomodamiento, pero quiero seguir y estoy dispuesta a hacerlo.
Well my dear Aditya, most people have blockage on one area or the other which prevent us from being fully healthy and happy. Say for instance you have all these sexual fantasies, and then you let life pass without searching to fulfill any of them, but get stuck in conventional narrowness of how this is supposed to be lived. Yes, we should appreciate what we have and treasure all the happiness we feel. But, honestly I do not believe we will be fully happy till we are in ‘Paradise with God’ or whatever we choose to call this state of mind and reality. I certainly constantly move & search & enjoy discovering new delights around every part of where the path take me. Too many people are stuck in a narrow minded attitude to life, and really, I believe it drags us down, this attitude, when we need to fly all over the place like colorful butterflies.
Love & admiration
Heart
xx
Oh yeah, la donna è fantastica! :)
I choose that path :-)
Love, Jojo.
A hug and a kiss !!!
Love, Jojo.
Hello Monica,
simply giving away 3 books to 3 people.
Stefano
“Luck itself just doesn’t mean a thing”…oh don´t say so Montega, maybe all the clover and such things want to say to You is… the universe reminds you that you are blessed. isn´t that good to know?
I am blessed
point of view”"”spell mistake
waving !!! me too !!! and Oh sexual fantasies, how very alluring they are.
so its is about desires? If u have a desire,that desire will lead your way, better to fulfill some desires and see that its very nature of desires to be not fulfilled permamnenetly. hope u remember that story of diogenes and alexander, ya teh great no less. alexander was about to embark on his world conquest and before setting off he thought it prudent to meet diozenes a mystic saint who used to live naked on a riverbank. d asked a where was he going, a replied to conqure the world, d again asked him, Ok what would u do after that, a replied, have not given it much thought, but looking at you, i feel envious, such calm, such simplicity, such restfulness, i will like to spend time like u do. d replied, in that case u may start immediately.; forget the conquest, join me. a could not take this offer, the war machine was alreday set in motion, but he promised d that one day he will come back, and asked d as to what gift would he like, d smiled and said u will nevr come back, my dear, and as for gift, just step a little aside, u are blocking the sun rays falling on me. a left, deep in thought, of course never to return.
now suppose a had taken d’s advise, what would happen, he would have been in two minds all his life, had a got the message, he would have dropped the outward quest immeditaely, but just because d is saying something, had a followed him, a would have been in two minds, and two minds is the cause of pain.
may peace be upon us.
love
aditya
Dear Annie,
“We all change weather we accept it or not, and pain is mostly caused by resisting this change” Was Paulo who wrote that?
We all take the wrong train sometime, or to put it in a different way, what we think was the wrong train. But that what make us human defeats, mistakes, pain, foolish decisions, and not only victories, and “right decisions”. Who wants to live with Gods or perfect angles? not me it would be so boring ;-)
“i will not jump them, i will fly over them”
Dear Annie, this is beautiful! To fly over the holes.
Like you, I return to what made me happy as a child – nature.
Love, Jane : )
Heart my dear…
According to a study “Journal of Neurophysiology”
“Sex and romantic love involve quite different brain systems.”
“Specifically, the scientists found that “love” activated the right ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsal caudate body of the brain, which are regions associated with motivation to win a reward. According to another author, Lucy Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, this may explain why romantic love can feel like such a driving factor. In addition, this association may help us understand why depression, murder, and suicide are so strongly related to rejected love.”
“Another breakthrough the researchers found was that brain patterns change with long-term relationships to areas associated with attachment. They also found that brain areas activated by a physical attraction were on the left, whereas areas activated by romantic love were on the right.”
Satora
Hey Annie, Aditya, Hildegarde & Satora!
Thank you for your ‘waving’, your legend & your medical input! Yes, religion and moral philosophers always try to guide our search for the healthy happy life & I had not heard before about the left & right side of the brain being differently engaged in sex or in love. Very interesting! Similarly I just learned that healing occur when the brain is in a Theta state. ‘There are four different frequencies of brain waves: Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. These brain waves are in constant motion…A Theta state is a very deep state of relaxation, of perfect calm. It is the state that is used in hypnosis and meditation…’ Also the Greek understanding of Love as Eros, Philos & Agape comes to mind.
So, where does this take us? I believe to live fully we should not be afraid to explore any of these wonderful opportunities in our lives…treasure our nature and live a little :)
Love,
Heart
xx
I appreciate your comment Thank you ( re ‘losing three years..I was in them -yes! True ..it is contact with a loved one that I lost out on)
wishing you a good weekend,
Breda
I second that!
I agree, I also worked in that sector but in Latin America and I visited Asia and Africa and saw the poor there and their happiness struck me. I now realise this is a basic need for survival. You’d better be smiling if you want people to help you. The “happiness” for sale is so extreme (island, luxury villa, five restaurants etc) that the idea of prolonging that state to a state is the summum of life is wrong.
Thanks for the reply, dude.
that’s beautiful! thanks Sophie.
There is always fish in the sea! True love is wiating for you, you just don’t see it yet. Be patience and enjoy in some other things you love!
And ofcourse – belive and love yourself – then the God will help you because you will show that you care….
Love and good luck!
Ivana
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