Dear Eve,
I’ve been in a few relationships, but I’m not sure if true love was ever part of the equation. I’m single now, and I’m feeling really isolated and alone. I just hate feeling like no one loves me. I just want to feel loved and I don’t know what to do.
Aloha,
As the chocolate buzz of Valentine’s Day fades, I find myself thinking about radical acts of self-love. Over the last week I’ve polled my friends, asking them for their take on the qualities of someone in a state of self-love.
So often when Valentine’s Day is approaching, we all start looking for signs of love outside of ourselves—chocolate, cards, phone calls, flowers, gifts or other sweet sentiments. The sad truth is that even if there is love all around us, if we don’t love ourselves, we may not notice it—nor believe or trust what we see.
I glance at my watch quickly, at the risk of spilling some of the Sancerre in my glass. It’s almost 10 p.m., and I’m doing the sleep-math in my head. If I go to bed by 11, I’ll get only seven hours before I have to wake up and prepare the traps. Oberon, Ariel and Puck will be waiting for me on the sidewalk as they have these last two months since emerging, blinking tiny eyes, from the depths of the garbage-filled ravine where they were born, seeking their daily meal. They trust me now, and it’s time...
“Jane rescues cats! Don’t you, Jane?”
Recently I met someone who reminded me about what really matters, someone who inspired a perspective that remade my world anew. And for that reason, I’m so glad I can say yes to the question that is all the buzz across Texas: "Have You Seen Leon?"
When I walk through my plant nursery, The Sacred Garden, right after we have watered, there is a tangible energy in the air. Everything feels different. When I stop to be observant and consider what it is that I am feeling, I realize that the feeling is oozing and emanating from the plants—it feels like gratitude and joy fill the entire greenhouse. Then I discover that gratitude is contagious.I feel different. I feel joyful.
If you choose to honor fear over love, remember that fear will stay in your life—whether your partner does or not.
This morning I decided to eat mindfully. Then, halfway through my lunch, I suddenly realized that my conscious mind missed the first half of my sandwich. I was typing, unmindful that I was eating. So with the next bite, I ate more mindfully, paying attention to the different tastes as they passed over my tongue.
“What’s wrong with the world, and what can we do about it?” These are the two seemingly vague and yet deeply complex questions that director Tom Shadyac sought to answer when he set out to make the documentary that became I AM. What he discovered, and what he created, is not really a documentary at all. Instead, it’s an intellectual and spiritual journey, a quest for the truth about the nature of humanity, and, ultimately, a lesson in how we should all be striving to live.
A few years ago I became an adopted grandma and had a five year old living in my house for awhile. I have to admit that seeing the world through the eyes of a five year old is an excellent reminder to lighten up. She and my cats were clearly put in my life to remind me to play and have fun, no matter what I am doing.
