Athens Counseling Center

Repost courtesy of Contemplative Monk.

Talking to Grief Denise Levertov Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog... who comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish. You think I don't know you've been living under my porch. You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog. See more

One of the most popular quotes from Untamed is, Being human is not about feeling happy. It’s about feeling everything. If it’s true for us, it’s true for our... babies, too. So maybe we stop trying to make our kids happy- and instead we just let them be everything. So they learn that being everything is okay. Perfect, even. It’s not our job to make them happy. Here’s to letting our kids BE. Here’s to trying easier. Love you. #GetUntamed Thank you for posting this Susan Stiffelman - it helped me so much today. And thank you Sterna Suissa for creating this message.

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. Maya Angelou Daniel Gerhartz - Waiting.

"Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else. Tom Stoppard Anna Ancher

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"I was laying in bed one night and I thought ‘I’ll just quit...to hell with it.’ And another little voice inside me said ‘Don’t quit...save that tiny little emb...er of spark.’ And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again. Charles Bukowski Christian Schloe

Untamed parenting is teaching (more importantly: modeling) that feeling deeply and expressing those feelings honestly IS brave. Letting your heart be seen IS br...ave. If you are sad or angry -- that’s because you’re paying attention. Sensitivity is a superpower. The opposite of sensitive is not brave! The opposite of sensitive is insensitive. No Medal of Honor. KNOW THIS and make sure your kids know this. Make sure your boys know. The world is taming them -- insisting they hide their humanity -- and it’s hurting them and all of us. Brave and Soft. Fire and Water. Strong and Weak. Loud and silent. We can be everything. We ARE everything. Don’t tame kids into cages of femininity or masculinity- let them be human and whole and free. Love, G Thank you, Parenting Works for this artful addition to Gina & Mercer Mayer’s children’s book Just Lost

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I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots. Andrea Koehle Jones Carl Strathmann - Chestnut Trees, 1900.

One of the most powerful things you can do my loves, is learn to find the pause between what is happening and your response to it. Begin to practice waiting, si...tting back, before you react to something, you actually will be strengthening your action muscle and diminishing your reaction conditioned behavior. Reacting to people, places, and things puts you in a very weak place, pausing, and choosing how you will act is powerful. This quote from one of my favorite people ever, Viktor Frankl changed my life over 30 years ago: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. See more

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apa...rt. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. Pema Chödrön Daria Petrilli

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are ...with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. Kahlil Gibran Abram Arkhipov

My dear friend @shutterbean (who is also @thehandwritingclub) drew this for me. Quote is from a recent episode with Michael Gungor.

When we rise to a state of awareness of our love just as we do of our other emotions then we are able to love ourselves and the other as they are without ...expecting them to change or love us back in exactly the way we need them to. Our love for them no longer becomes about us. We are out of the equation. Now, we either choose to love the other person for who it is they are, or we don’t. Now, love is about them as they are. #consciousparenting See more