Illinois ladies facing bc

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  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    An arrogant person can't make me feel bad any more, because it's so easy to see through them once you know that they're faking it. They've put on this mask because they fear that others will see through them, will understand that no, they're not happy. I see arrogance as a sad state now, a state in which people try to hide behind their money or their breeding or their social standing or their positions of "power," but a state in which they'll never be able to let their true selves shine through. . . . Be arrogant if you wish. Look down on others and treat them poorly, if you wish. But realize that if you do so, you're only allowing your own inner weaknesses to shine through, and you're not fooling anyone. Not the people around you, who hold you in disdain, not the God who made you and loves you and knows all about you, and not yourself.
    -tom walsh

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Throughout our lives, the moment we bring our awareness fully into the Now, we enter the domain of the true self, and our immediate conscious reality is once again that of sensation and perception. As I sit in the park, the sunlight brightens the leaves and casts shadows on the ground. I have a feeling of contentment. And as long as "I" don't create stories about what I am seeing or about the fact that I am feeling content, which leads me away from my immediate experience, what I experience remains simply perception and sensation. The same is true for any feeling, any emotion. In the Now, it is just what it is. In the Now, I "go back" to my original awareness "by the way that [I] have come." When we directly perceive and experience whatever is present in our larger fields of awareness, it is possible to have a relationship with it without becoming lost in it or defined by it. -Richard Moss, The Mandala of Being

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019


    The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.
    - Neale Donald Walsch

    There Is Peace In A Life Of Constant Gratitude.
    Have Gratitude for the Smallest Blessings,
    for the crust of bread and the cool drink of water.
    - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

    Appreciation is the highest form of prayer,
    for it acknowledges the presence of good
    wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.
    - Alan Cohen

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Peace of mind just can't be bought. Trust me: Even if your conscience doesn't stop you from playing dirty to get what you want, once you get it, it will keep you from enjoying it. As my mother used to say, "A good conscience is God's eye." Which is why I always prefer a loss to an underhanded gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. -Patti LaBelle

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happy" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. -Carl Jung

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment. -Arthur Jersild

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one's own convictions--not obstinately or defiantly (these are gestures of defensiveness, not courage) nor as a gesture of retaliation, but simply because these are what one believes. -Rollo May

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019
    Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a person who won't cheat, then you know you never will. -John MacDonald


    If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. -Alan Simpson
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019
    Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -Helen Keller
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    The powerful potential behind change lies in the possibility that each new beginning will bring us greater joy and freedom than we have ever known. Whether or not that actually happens--whether or not we continue to grow through the cycles of our lives--is largely up to us. We play a part in what happens by choosing how we see our changes, our beginnings, our endings. We can see each ending as a tragedy and lament and resist it, or we can see each ending as a new beginning and a new birth into greater opportunities. What the caterpillar sees as the tragedy of death, the butterfly sees as the miracle of birth. -John Marks Templeton

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Life is never going to give up on you because there is something important for you to do. One of the primary purposes and processes of life is the development of character. Your character—your nature, the distinctive qualities of your essence, what makes you you—is developed through experience. If you do not understand that character development is an important process of life, you may be tempted to give up when things get rough. . . . When life detects that there is an opportunity for you to advance the nature of your character, it will send the perfect situation and people your way. Your job is to respond to everything in a manner that develops and strengthens your character. -Iyanla Vanzant

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    The peace of one individual is small. The peace of many people together is big. When we see ourselves as separate from our community and from nature, then violence and strife arise. It is only when we understand our part in an overall unity that there is the possibility of peace on a large scale. -Deng Ming Dao

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    I choose gentleness. Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself. -Max Lucado

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    I will greet this day with love in my heart.
    And how will I do this?
    Henceforth will I look on all things with love and be born again.
    I will love the sun for it warms my bones;
    yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit.
    I will love the light for it shows me the way;
    yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars.
    I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart;
    yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul.
    I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due;
    yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.
    - Og Mandino

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something
    to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to
    work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance,
    self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a
    hundred other virtues which the idle never know.



    Charles Kingsley

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    As I experience it, appreciation of beauty is access to the soul. With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly and with a different look in our eyes. To look into the eyes of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows of the soul. Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there; anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!," the soul is present. -Jean Shinoda Bolen

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Use the talents you possess, the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. Henry Van Dyke

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019
    Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don't have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don't have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy. -Thich Nhat Hanh




    Peace comes from living a measured life. Peace comes from attending to every part of my world in a sacramental way. My relationships are not what I do when I have time left over from my work. . . . Reading is not something I do when life calms down. Prayer is not something I do when I feel like it. They are all channels of hope and growth for me. They must all be given their due. -Joan D. Chittister
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    Neither our means, nor our worth, are measurable by our money. If one has a fat purse and a lean heart, a broad estate and a narrow understanding, what will one's "means" do for one—what will his or her "worth" gain that person? What sadder sight is there than old people who have spent their lives getting instead of growing? If they have piled up books, statues, and paintings with their wealth, they may be strangers among people. How poor they are if their souls have shriveled to those of misers, and if all their nobler instincts are dead! -Orison Swett Marden

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited October 2019

    It need not discourage us if we are full of doubts. Healthy questions keep faith dynamic. In fact, unless we start with doubts we cannot have a deep-rooted faith. One who believes lightly and unthinkingly has not much of a belief. One who has a faith which is not to be shaken has won it through blood and tears--has worked his or her way from doubt to truth as one who reaches a clearing through a thicket of brambles and thorns. -Helen Keller

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter
    everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe
    that change forever how we experience life and the world.
    - John Milton

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    When you honor your most authentic self--your Spirit--you are
    allowing your Light to shine and touch the world. Living
    authentically, in its simplest terms, is living your Truth, the
    truth in your heart and soul. It's allowing yourself to be guided
    by Divine Truth and Wisdom, each and every day, and doing
    your Highest, most authentic work in the world.
    It's joyfully creating and living your Highest purpose!

    Valerie Rickel

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. -Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    This we know. The Earth does not belong to people; people belong to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. People did not weave the web of life; we are merely strands in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. -attributed to Chief Seattle

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    The true end of education is not only to make the young learned, but to make them love learning; not only to make them industrious, but to make them love industry; not only to make them virtuous, but to make them love virtue; not only to make them just, but to make them hunger and thirst after justice. -John Ruskin

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    Humility accompanies every experience wherein we let ourselves fully listen to others, to learn from them, to be changed by their words, their presence. Each opportunity we take to be fully present to other people, totally with them in mind and spirit, will bless us while it blesses them. Offering and receiving the gift of genuine attention is basic to the emotional growth of every human being. -unattributed

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    I believe that the first test of a truly great person is his or her humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his or her own powers. But really great people have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other person.

    John Ruskin

    ...

    Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able person and yet humble person is a jewel worth a kingdom.

    WilliamPenn


  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    Rosanne, so glad you found us here. Good for you recognizing that you are not less. You are more for the time you have been on this earth and not allowing people ( male or female ) to diminish you is a good attribute.

    I had a sister ( gone from out lives now ) whole name was Roseann. Spelled a bit different. Don't know for sure but I think that name could haver a number of spellings and be just fine. My name was crucified in my mind's eye. The Nuns at our local hospital at the time I and my sister, born first actually, were not always the best at spelling. I would have spelled my name Jackquelynn. Neither my mother or the Nuns could figure it out so to this day my name is Jackolin. If pronounced as spelled ( why couldn't anyone see it then ) it does not actually, to my way of thinking, sound like what I think and see in my mind to be much like what my folks and friends always pronounced when they used my first name.

    Going thru changing it for a number of yrs. came to mind but it would be somewhat troublesome and I felt like in the end, I'd learn to be happy with what my Mom gave me and move on. People are sometimes surprised though and say to me -- what an unusual spelling.

    Anyway -- go glad you are here. WE are not so much older, as wiser and better for that as something we can share to those coming up. We keep each other and that is why ae are all here.

  • spunkyboobster
    spunkyboobster Member Posts: 563
    edited November 2019

    imageThis time of year I think back to when I joined this group and all the wonderful women who helped me through the difficult times. Many of us would gather for a holiday get-together around this time. I am eternally grateful.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,754
    edited November 2019

    Spunky -- so great to see you and the picture as well. Such tremendous women who were that way then and still are now. Like you, I think all of the ladies ( most of them anyway ) were already there before I came in and I had never used a blog of any kind before. They forgave me all my 'blog' shortcomings while helping me navigate a frightening path. Wonderful women who made it okay to have cancer and each became for us and each other a personal cheering section. Because they made their time at the forum great, they in turn help make us great, accepted, cared about and so encouraged to get WELL. Help us to cheer on others as they came along.

    So very good to see you, stay strong and well, and thanks again for that great picture of memories.