Here's a great quote I have been carrying around with me for several decades:
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (from Meditations)
What are things that are external to you that may stress you? Just about everything: your job, your partner, your mother-in-law, your children, daily traffic, bills, the weather, delays, not knowing how to do something, the news, you name it, ten to one it is external to you. So if it is external to you, your reaction to it is one that comes from inside of you. It doesn't just happen because there is snarled traffic, it happens because you choose it, or allow it, or are blind to the fact that you even have a choice, and so what seems to be automatic to you (your reaction), is actually something you have a say about.
Your own estimate of it: you decide how you will think and feel about something and how you will react to it, because it is your estimate of it that makes it something negative or awful or terrifying or neutral or positive in your life. By choosing how you will react, by being in charge of your reactions, rather than allowing them to blow you about like a leaf in the wind, you gain inner freedom.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (from Meditations)
What are things that are external to you that may stress you? Just about everything: your job, your partner, your mother-in-law, your children, daily traffic, bills, the weather, delays, not knowing how to do something, the news, you name it, ten to one it is external to you. So if it is external to you, your reaction to it is one that comes from inside of you. It doesn't just happen because there is snarled traffic, it happens because you choose it, or allow it, or are blind to the fact that you even have a choice, and so what seems to be automatic to you (your reaction), is actually something you have a say about.
Your own estimate of it: you decide how you will think and feel about something and how you will react to it, because it is your estimate of it that makes it something negative or awful or terrifying or neutral or positive in your life. By choosing how you will react, by being in charge of your reactions, rather than allowing them to blow you about like a leaf in the wind, you gain inner freedom.
Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:
Rewiring the Soul
Click here to download the first chapter.
To see the Table of Contents click here
Reviews From the Back Cover:
"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre
"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself
"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human
The Tao of Spiritual PartnershipReviews From the Back Cover:
"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre
"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself
"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human
To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here
Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership
“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author (among others) of: Ecstasy is a New Frequency
“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.”
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born
The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self
It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.
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