This was how I saw it: As long as you keep your hand caringly open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there. However, if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to posses it, it will spill through the first cracks it finds.
This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love ... they try to possess it, they demand, they expect ... and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retreat from you.
For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings.
Give and don’t expect. Advise, but don’t order. Ask, but never demand.
It might sound simple, but it is a lesson that may take a lifetime to truly practice. It is the secret to true love. To truly practice it, you must sincerely feel no expectations from those who you love, and yet an unconditional caring."
All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
- Vivekananda
(The original author of this story is unknown, but it is often attributed to Vivekananda by many.)
Do something good for someone else, even though you may not want to. Do a favour, help them find something, give them an item which will help them in some way. Start the flow of positive energy.
Eat the best chocolate you can get your hands on. In bed.
Turn up music you really love. Play it so loudly that it soaks in through your skin. Dance in your pyjamas. Feel the pain lift.
Volunteer.
Call a friend & ask them if they want to have a slumber party.
Throw yourself head-first into a creative project. Something that you’re excited about but which feels a little too big for you. You’ll be so consumed by it that it will fuel you for ages.
Do the splits. Or at least try. (Be gentle though!)
Sing. Loudly. Badly. Off-key. Whatever you like. It works.
Cover your entire body in cocoa butter & fall asleep.
Write a list of things that you appreciate right now, in the present moment. Focus on each of them & let the love inside you well up. Even when things appear to be going really, really badly, there are always things to be happy about.
Indulge in your “guilty pleasures”, whatever they are. (Old episodes of America’s Next Top Model, korean movies, chocolate cake, romantic comedies, etc.)
Send a text message to one of the most interesting people you know — maybe someone you don’t know that well, just to say hello.
Order delivery food, just to bask in the glory of the fact that if you pay people, they will come to your door. With food. Warm, good food. What an age we live in, huh?
Look through old photos. With a friend if possible. If it’s an old friend, you can reminisce (“Oh my god, do you remember when we did that?!”), & if it’s a new friend, you can tell grand stories (“Well, let me tell you about this guy…”).
Write a gruellingly personal entry for your blog dissecting every aspect of the situation which has upset you so much. Post it, don’t post it, whatever, just get it out of your system.
Plan a holiday.
Spend an hour in your variety store of choice, set yourself a budget ($20?) & buy some junk. Lip treatments, candy, maybe an exfoliating scrub… Then go home & play with your new purchases. There’s a reason it’s called retail therapy, you know (though of course, it doesn’t last).
Think up nicknames for all your friends, then send them each postcards to alert them.
Go out for a milkshake.
Appreciate the dinosaur bones at your favourite museum.
Grab a friend, dress up like tourists & go & do all the really schlocky things on offer in your city. Take LOTS of photos.
Stick little crystals on something you use every day. (Wallet, light-switch, key-ring, boots?)
Buy a new pair of sunglasses or non-prescription frames. It’s a super-easy (& often relatively cheap) way to evolve your look. Plus sunglasses make for excellent on-the-fly disguises.
Put on your favourite pair of high heels & walk up & down your bedroom/hallway doing your best Miss J impersonation. Have a friend or neighbour who is willing to humour you offer critique. “Girl, you walk like a busted-down freight-train.”
Write multiple lists of everything you want. Material possessions, relationships, work, lifestyle, everything. Pin them up by your door so you see them all the time.
Go through Urban Dictionary & find some fun/ridiculous new words to add to your vocabulary.
Make yourself the biggest ice-cream sundae you’ve ever seen. Decorate it with hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, nonpareils, whatever you like. Take a photo. Give it a name (“Jane’s Orgasmatron Cardiac Arrest Sundae”). Devour. Maybe without using your hands. Take a photo of that too.
Spend an hour in a department store sniffing perfume samples. When you find something you like, spray it on a card & drop it in your purse.
Try break-dancing.
Write a letter to yourself in the future. Then hide it. Maybe in the pocket of a coat you never, ever wear.
Pull a Kid CuDi & announce your retirement from the world of something. Like cooking, or vocal communication. Announce your unretirement whenever you feel like it.
Buy a harmonica & annoy the hell out of everyone while you learn how to play it.
Choose a festival to go to, invite some friends, & start making plans.
Hula hoop.
Buy some really good art for your walls. Posters, prints, original artwork or other. If you’re feeling impoverished, go to the library, check out some art books, then take huge, great quality photocopies at a copy shop.
Load up your ipod & go for a walk through your favourite park.
Visit a cool toy store & make your friend a surprise package.
Reach out to the people who inspire you but who don’t know you exist.
Write the birthdays of your personal heroes in your planner & work out a way to honour them on that day.
Pie.
Notice where you hold tension in your body, & let it go.
Bake heart- or bunny-shaped cookies. Give them away.
Be graceful.
Be graceless.
Make a video diary.
Answer questions with questions.
Try on a pair of really, really expensive shoes & act like you’ll be back tomorrow, but you’re just going to go home & think about it. (Bonus points: take a photo of you in them. Often you will need to be stealthy about this but it’s worth doing.)
Record yourself trying to recite the alphabet while vigorously brushing your teeth.
Sing into your friend’s answering machine/voicemail.
Pour pancakes in the shape of your initials. Eat them while watching aerobics on television.
Make friends with your neighbours.
Go to an audition just for the experience.
Tell someone cute, “You’re cute”.
Sit in a sauna with a stack of fashion magazines & sweat it out.
Find a secret place with a great view. Like a tree, or a rooftop, or a hill.
Go & see a musical (or just rent one).
Be optimistic.
Buy ridiculous slippers.
Make a list of the things you want to do to celebrate the upcoming season.
Lie down in the sunshine.
Go to an aquarium & take photos of the jellyfish.
Watch movies you used to love as a child.
Book a karaoke room with friends & sing your heart out.
Make a list of practical, actionable ways you can improve your situation.
Start keeping a dream journal & write down their supposed meanings, too.
See if you can develop an appreciation for a band or a style of music you’ve never liked before.
Write a play.
Go to vintage stores looking for fabulous old typewriters.
Change your ring-tone to the sound of one of your friends laughing hysterically.
Watch videos of Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy.
Listen to Divine Harvest by The Mae Shi. Don’t be worried, everything will turn out fine. Don’t be worried, friend just put your hand in mine.
Take a nap with your head at the other end of the bed.
Walk around a garden centre & buy a colourful plant. Give it a name.
Go somewhere that people walk their pets & make friends with some fluffy creatures.
Hug your friends.
Tell someone everything.
Believe that everything is always getting better!
