The people at JacksGap asked their audience to send video messages via Skype answering the question “What do you love?”
After receiving over 2,500 responses from twenty different countries, they created this touching short video that reminds us there’s so much beauty in the world, so much that we can all appreciate, regardless of our differences. What do you love?
“You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brené Brown
For years, I felt unfulfilled in my relationships. I often felt drained, and as if I was the only one giving and doing things for others.
I couldn’t quite understand what I was doing wrong and why relationships were so challenging for me. All I wanted to do was to feel loved and supported. Why couldn’t I get that?
Then, nearly three years ago, after a bad breakup and a ton of other relationship challenges, I reached a breaking point. I knew I …
“Self-love requires you to be honest about your current choices and thought patterns and undertake new practices that reflect self-worth.” ~Caroline Kirk
If one more person told me to “love myself” I was going to levitate into the air and pull one of those impossible martial arts moves from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I was sick of it!
What the heck does loving myself mean? Were they talking about bubble baths, pedicures, and cucumber masks? It turns out there is so much more to self-love than just pampering ourselves. I found this out the hard way.
About a year …
“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown
Things changed. You can’t put your finger on it, but you know it’s true. You wish you could make it better. You want to fix it.
The problem is that you don’t know how.
Maybe it’s already too late, and the relationship ended despite all your efforts.
In the barrage of cliché advice and consolation you get from friends, relatives, and “experts,” the answer is as elusive as ever. It’s not helpful when people tell you that it just wasn’t meant …
“Don’t let past relationships ruin your future happiness. Scars remind us of where we’ve been, not where we are going.” ~Unknown
I believe that the breakdown of relationships can lead to some of the most powerful lessons we learn in life.
When someone who we’ve been close to suddenly steps out of our lives, it can leave a huge emotional void. It can conjure up feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, anger, sadness, fear, and hurt, and the natural reaction is to go on a desperate mission to fill that void.
My relationship recently broke down. It was my choice, and though …
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.
“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~BrenéBrown
I was happiest when I didn’t know my weight, and that was ironically when I was at my heaviest, which was in high school.
I was slow to take on the self-loathing and body image issues that plague so many young kids. I rarely felt bad about myself, partly because I had a loving family and a …
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide
I have walked on water.
The frozen wasteland known as Chicago had kept me inside, wary of the intense cold that was breaking records that particularly frigid winter. But after interminable snow days, I began to feel like a caged animal that needed to break free.
I woke early one morning, overcome with the urgent need to connect to something living, something wild. I wrapped myself in countless layers like the kid in The Christmas Story and ventured out into the …
“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho
My husband had been unemployed for more than two years before it hit me that I was dealing with it all wrong. During that time, I kept thinking that any day he would find a new job. And every day that went by I was disappointed, frustrated, unhappy, and even angry at times.
For two years I felt like we were in limbo. I was always thinking, “We’ll do this or that after he finds a job.” Everything seemed to be put on …
“My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.” ~Byron Katie
Nothing hurts like being misunderstood, and there is no place that this feeling runs rampant quite like it does with family.
I used to think I was the only one.
For years after I moved out, each visit back home would be preceded by careful, specific preparation. I would try to brace myself for whatever would be coming my way.
I would spend the entire two-hour bus ride turning all of the possible criticisms and probable arguments over and over in …
“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is: a dissatisfaction with self.” ~Joan Didion
When I was a young man I had an issue with relationships. Looking back now, it is easy to see that I had low self-esteem, though I could not see it at the time. Because of my low self-image and my neediness, many relationships that could have had a decent chance went by the way side.
I developed a low-level anxiety about how much any girlfriend cared for me, which, in turn, became outright jealousy and resulted in controlling behavior.
I would …
“Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.” ~Ram Dass
In my personal experience, I’ve learned that it is sometimes easier to dance this journey of life solo rather than in partnership. Many of us have experienced life both in relationships and outside of them. Both are just as sweet.
I’d like to offer up some lessons I have learned in my dance in and out of relationships:
Our society seems to put a lot of pressure on the idea that things will last forever. But the truth …
“If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path.” ~Buddha
It’s long been declared that the nature of life is based on survival of the fittest; that we all must constantly compete to survive.
And maybe, in some ways this is true.
But what if there were another truth, something that is even more powerful than competition?
What if cooperation is our true natural state?
Consider this: love is more powerful than hate.
Hope is more powerful than fear.
And if we believe in love and hope, then we believe in the power of unity. …
“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” ~Sonya Friedman
The moon was shining brightly that balmy summer’s night in the park. He’d arranged a meeting to “sort things out.” Little did he know I’d finally built the courage to walk away. And that’s exactly what I did.
I was devastated but mostly relieved. Finally, I was free.
For the longest time I’d craved his love. I needed his approval. I wanted the happy ending so badly.
Why? I meant something when I was with him. I felt worthy and kind of secure.
But I wasn’t. I’d given …
“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” ~Unknown
For probably over thirty years—since I was old enough to know I needed them—I’ve been looking for my people.
You know the ones—the people who get you, somehow; who are on the same wavelength. Some might even say the people who share the same brand of quirky, crazy, or oddness that you do. The ones who understand why you do what you do, or if they don’t understand, they either ask or they just accept, and either way is …
“People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” ~Joseph F. Newton
The epiphany has finally occurred. Why on earth has it taken so long? I ask myself this as I look back on the last nine years, which I have spent trying to cover up my real issue. Loneliness.
After getting married at twenty and then leaving nineteen years later, it took another two years before I met another man that I fell in love with almost instantly. He told me from the very beginning it would never be a relationship, and yet I have persevered with our …
“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” ~Denis Waitley
I like to tell the story of how I changed my mind about myself and what I was worthy of and how that change almost immediately led me to my husband—or, rather, how it led him to me. On Craigslist.
But unlike a fairytale, we didn’t go straight from point A (boy meets girl on a sometimes-shady website) to point B (boy marries girl in the church she was baptized and grew up in, …
“My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.” ~Byron Katie
I never had a good relationship with my father when I was younger.
Sometimes he expressed his opinions in a rude way, sounding more like an attack than advice.
Many times he apologized after being rude, but I was too cold to forgive or listen.
The years passed, and I never made an effort to improve our relationship. It felt easier to deal with my mother. She was the one I always went to when I needed something, had a question, …
“When you have a choice to make and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” ~William James
I have been single for most of my life; sometimes it would seem by choice, and sometimes not. In that time, I have learned and experienced a lot. Some of the things I had thought I wanted changed, and some of the things I thought I didn’t want have become things I do.
Over the years I have tried various forms of meeting people, including the “bar method,” online dating, and approaching random strangers in public places. It’s not that I …
“You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
I’ve read a lot of articles about loving without attachment and respecting other people’s choices, but it wasn’t until one day that I truly got it. And I will tell you what happened to me that day.
My boss and I have a very special relationship. He’s the boss everyone would want to have. He appreciates me for my work and for everything I do. He thinks that I’m a great kid. Every time he has the chance, he praises my results and he …
“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown
I’m all too aware that dating can feel like a grinding, painful roller coaster to nowhere.
If you’ve hit your head against the wall as many times as I have, you know how frustrating, depressing, and downright disheartening it can be. Meeting someone new, going on a few great dates, getting excited, having one/both of you sort of stop calling; then repeating the process over and over is enough to make you want to give up for good.
The ups and downs in this cycle can make …
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