Little slights, harsh or unthinking words that sting and hurt, something said or done that has left wounded feelings are not that hard to forgive. No one is perfect and all of us, at one time or another, have done these things without even realizing it. Develop an attitude of constant acceptance and forgiveness as you go about daily life, shrugging off these little things in the realization that only your own attitude is bringing the distress you are feeling about them. Forgive yourself first for getting upset: then forgive the other person – entirely. To really erase the memory, think of something nice about that person and send out vibrations of concern and affection instead. If the person really meant to hurt you, this is entirely disarming! Love conquers all.
At the empty nest turning point of middle age, something arose in me, and my journal became full of entries about being alone. I discovered that two entries written 10 years apart were almost identical. I had not yet learned to dignify "alone" with the name of Solitude, but I knew what I wanted, what I needed—as if my life was depriving me of something as essential as the air I breathed.
Mystery: it is all around us, and we do not know it. But sometimes when we give it time and space, whether in deep peace or great anguish, it will come up behind us, or meet us face to face, or move within us, changing the way we see everything, and filling our hearts with joy and an upspringing of love that needs no direct object because everything is its object.
Modern life does not give us the experiences that might enlarge our vision. It hardly occurs to us that the living can have anything to say to the dying, or that the dying have anything to communicate to the living. We think that the dying are beyond our reach as they lie there, unable ot speak or respond in any way, but we are wrong. They can still hear what is said to them, even in what seems like deep unconsciousness; they can still be aware of touch... The dying need us to go as far as we can with them on the journey
