feelings

From the Twisted Metal

/ James Browning

pb-120213-blacksmith-jb-05_photoblog900

Every morning I make a posts on two other blogs I keep other than this one. With the description “love is so short, forgetting is so long” www.brokenheartsanonymous.com is centered on the pain and sorrow love can bring. On the flip side is my blog www.loveletterdaily.com which celebrates the sweetness of love at its best (“Passages from Poetry, Love letters and Expressions of the Heart”) .

Do I love “love”? You betcha, but if I ever was lost in the fantasy and make-believe of it, I am over that. However, I am grateful for the reverence I hold for love that is possible between a man and woman. “Once upon a time…” still has meaning!

I have not loved often, but I have loved deeply with all my being. To have felt such deep emotion once is a blessing. More than once is something I never imagined possible, but have experienced.

With each heartbreak I learned about the value of love. My mistakes have been great teachers. The lesson that hurting one I love left great pain in my heart and was an important teaching to suffer through. In my pain was forged a faithful heart.

I dreamed I spoke in another’s language,
I dreamed I lived in another’s skin,
I dreamed I was my own beloved,
I dreamed I was a tiger’s kin.

I dreamed that Eden lived inside me,
And when I breathed a garden came,
I dreamed I knew all of Creation,
I dreamed I knew the Creator’s name.

I dreamed–and this dream was the finest–
That all I dreamed was real and true,
And we would live in joy forever,
You in me, and me in you.
From “Days of Magic, Nights of War”
by Clive Barker

Healthy love” is the warm cherishing of another person without expectation and clinging. This love “accepts” all aspects of another person and “requires” nothing from them. This love is something we create in our own heart and give as our gift, freely, willingly. With a compassionate, open heart, we truly, sincerely, authentically want the best for the other person: the best seat in the restaurant, the best of ourselves, the best job, the most fulfilling life they can have. We create this contentment in order to share it; we don’t depend on the other person in order to feel it. This “unselfish” love doesn’t need the other person’s happiness in order to exist, but it knows that when we increase someone else’s happiness, everyone’s happiness, satisfaction, and contentment multiply exponentially. Love is an essential part of life. It is the expression of inner happiness and contentment. Karuna Cayton

And so my once dysfunctional love affair with love, is no less strong than before, but has morphed into a positive presence within me. No longer the untrained steed, loves power can take me safely upon its back.  I am grateful for each woman I have loved and who loved me. Each one was a blacksmith of my heart who helped burn, shape and forge the faithful heart within me from the twisted metal it once was.

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.
Rumi

My History of Anger

/ James Browning

illustrate-anger-1

Every destructive emotion bears its own harvest, but anger’s fruit is the most bitter of all. Uncontrolled anger is a devastating sin, and no one is exempt from its havoc. It shatters friendships and destroys marriages; it causes abuse in families and discord in business; it breeds violence in the community and war between nations. Its recoil, like that of a high-powered rifle, often hurts the one who wields it as well as its target. Anger makes us lash out at others, destroying relationships and revealing our true nature. The history of the human race is largely the history of its anger. Billy Graham

Years ago my anger was a crutch; a habit and a bad one. My temper would get loose the easiest when slighted or left out by people I cared about. In hindsight, most of the time I simply needed to be understanding toward an unintentional act. But letting indignation give flame to anger, I volleyed back with spiked words hurled with intention to hurt another. Being sorry later did little to calm the hurts I often caused. The end result was usually ending up mad at myself.

Finding out some people were afraid of me, or at least reluctant to be in my company, was humbling. It’s wasn’t that I was an intentionally hurtful person, but rather I was a powder keg that did not need much agitation to go “boom”. I know now that my anger was only fear turned inside out.

A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled and asked, “Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?”

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, “Because we lose our calm, we shout”.

“But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner?” asked the saint.

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples.

Finally the saint explained, “When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance. What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small…”

The saint continued, “When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other”.

He looked at his disciples and said, “‘So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant, Do not say words that distance each other more, Or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return”.

In recent years I am a calm person who rarely gets agitated and when I do it’s a fairly rare occurrence for me to express it externally. Those who have known me ten years or less say they can’t imagine me being a person with hair-trigger anger. I am grateful that’s true and for the guidance and intention that has put anger mostly behind me.

Anybody can become angry —
that is easy,
but to be angry with the right person
and to the right degree and at the right time
and for the right purpose, and in the right way;
that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
Aristotle

How To Tell If Somebody Loves You

/ James Browning

Screen_Shot_2012-12-29_at_12_19_39_PMNEWnew new

Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin. You didn’t ask for these things, but this person went ahead and did it anyway. They don’t want to see you looking like a fool with eyelashes and crumbs on your face. They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage!

Somebody loves you if they assume the role of caretaker when you’re sick. Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? Fake a case of food poisoning and text them being like, “Oh, my God, so sick. Need water.” Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not they REALLY love you. “That’s terrible. Feel better!” earns you a stay in friendship jail; “Do you need anything? I can come over and bring you get well remedies!” gets you a cozy friendship suite. It’s easy to care about someone when they don’t need you. It’s easy to love them when they’re healthy and don’t ask you for anything beyond change for the parking meter. Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit. Either love me with vomit in my hair or don’t love me at all.

Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They’re not passive, they don’t just let you get away with murder. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They aren’t passive observers in your life, they are in the trenches. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you.

Somebody loves you if they don’t mind the quiet. They don’t mind running errands with you or cleaning your apartment while blasting some annoying music. There’s no pressure, no need to fill the silences. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? You don’t feel comfortable just shooting the shit and watching bad reality TV with them. You need something that will keep the both of you busy to ensure there won’t be a void. That’s not love. That’s “Hey, babe! I like you okay. Do you wanna grab lunch? I think we have enough to talk about to fill two hours!” It’s a damn dream when you find someone you can do nothing with. Whether you’re skydiving together or sitting at home and doing different things, it’s always comfortable. That is f@&king love.

Somebody loves you if they want you to be happy, even if that involves something that doesn’t benefit them. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding. When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to.

Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment… Somebody loves you if they don’t care about your job or how much money you make. It’s a relationship where no one is selling something to the other… Somebody loves you if they’re able to create their own separate world with you, away from the internet and your job and family and friends. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. If you don’t think this is true, then you’re not paying close enough attention. Ryan O’Connell

I love this piece and am grateful for its blunt clarity. Love is not a special one or two things, it is everything.

Individuals who want to believe
that there is no fulfillment in love,
that true love does not exist,
cling to these assumptions
because this despair is actually easier
to face than the reality that love is
a real fact of life
but is absent from their lives.
Bell Hooks

Any Family With More than One

/ James Browning

winniethepooh1

In late 1925, a newspaper in London published a story by A.A. Milne titled “The Wrong Sort of Bees”. The tale introduced a bear named Winnie the Pooh who would become the lead character of one of the most successful children’s stories of all time. Inspiration came to A.A. Milne’s from his son’s meeting at the London Zoo of a black bear from the wilderness of the Canada. The son was named Christopher Robin Milne and the bear was called “Winnipeg” or “Winnie”.

In his stories Milne endeavored to make his character’s less than perfect with the belief it made them more loveable. Most of us have been familiar since childhood with Pooh’s forgetfulness, Tigger’s mood changes and Piglet’s fear of just about everything. Here in plain terms is a list of the dysfunctions I believe A.A. Milne’s gave his characters of Hundred Acre Wood to make them have human likeness.

Pooh Bear – suffers from an eating disorder and food (honey) addiction, episodes of dementia and exhibitionist tendencies (reluctance to wear pants).

Tigger – mood swings from irrational exuberance to despair combined with narcissistic behaviors and A.D.H.D. evidenced by his inability to ever be still.

Piglet – General Anxiety Disorder with a variety of phobias including creaking branches, small streams, gusting wind, his own shadow and other irrational and delusional fears.

Eeyore – clinical depression and feelings of inadequacy driven by his lack of a tail and his need to overcompensate by wearing a fake one made from fabric and a nail.

Owl – narcissistic personality approaching delusions of grandeur fed by anti-social tendencies and an over inflated ego with an irrational need to always be correct.

Rabbit – obsessive-compulsive personality with a side helping of neurosis exhibited by his incessant, exacting attention to his gardening, cooking and keeping things orderly.

Even the Christopher Robin character, patterned after A.A. Milne’s son, could be said to have “issues”. Some have surmised that in the story his playing in the woods all the time while talking to stuffed animals could be looked upon as either just a kid’s story or a form of psychotic hallucination.

You may or may not choose to think it is fairly apparent the benign messaging of story shapes the consciousness of children in a healthful way. I choose to think the characters are not just entertainment, but art in the way the writer poured emotion into their creation.

Having been in depression recovery for years now I can readily think of people I know in self-help groups that match each of the Pooh characters. I am grateful A.A. Milner created such deep characters and meaningful stories that have more significance today than when they were written. To smile, be entertained and be touched, all at the same time, is truly the mark of great work.

You know the definition
of a dysfunctional family,
don’t you?
It’s any family with more
than one member in it.
Sarah Pekkenen

Based on articles found at:
http://thedailyretort.com/on-the-psychiatric-couch-winnie-the-pooh/
http://top4eva.tumblr.com/post/13572677292/acronyms-the-dysfunctional-psychology-of-winnie

A Blessing of Grace

/ James Browning

swaddle-baby-636 blur

When getting married the second time, I knew exactly what I was doing. I was motivated by love. In the light of day the internal dysfunction that beat on me constantly could not be seen. And in time it took control again. While my then-wife was not blameless, my behavior is ultimately what brought a divorce.

I really did love her. Always will. There I a debt of gratitude I carry for her for how she helped me when I earnestly got into recovery from PTSD, childhood trauma, compulsion, depression and such. Even after divorce she came around and gave me support for a couple of years before telling me she had to get on with her life and could no longer have contact with me.

In time I have come to accept A. moving on. I understand she did what she needed to do for herself. She remarried and has custody of the child of a family member. She always wanted to be a Mother and I bet she is doing a great job raising that little boy.

Two weeks ago my mobile phone rings. Caller ID says it’s ‘her’. It’s been a long time since we’d spoken and I was surprised. I answer and soon notice it’s a ‘pocket dial’. To no avail I tried making whistling noises and such to get her attention so she’d know I was on the other end of the phone.

For a couple of minutes I listened to her sing along with the little boy while driving. It was touching when she switched to “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray, you’ll never know dear how much I love you, so please don’t take my sunshine way…”

You see those were the words we sang at least part of to each other just about every day while hugging and greeting each other after being apart. My first reaction was sadness, but it was quickly replaced with good feelings. It was with the knowing the only way she could be singing those words was if she was past the hurt of our relationship.

It was the happiness in her voice that meant the most. It lifted a good bit of my weight off the hook I had kept myself hung on for hurting her.

While I could have kept listening, I smiled and pressed disconnect instead. Initially the thought came I should text her or email to let her know about accidentally calling me, but thought better of it. There would have been no point except to bring a little of her attention to me.

I will never know if A. realizes she called me without knowing it. I actually hope she doesn’t. The accidental phone call gave me a good bit of relief from the guilt I was still carrying about the end of our marriage.

I will always love her, but can do so now easier in a past-tense sense. Knowing she is happy and content living a life that contains her dream of motherhood made me feel good. After all, if a person truly loves another it’s that person’s happiness that is most important. It’s another small example of a divine force at work. What might appear only as an accidental phone call was a blessing of grace. To the source from which all things originate I will always be grateful for this gift.

Love is when the other person’s
happiness is more important
than your own.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Mac and The Banger (repost)

/ James Browning

It’s been a year  later since I posted this originally. I’m thinking about the friends who inspired it (one of them passed about this time a few years ago). https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2012/07/12/mac-and-the-banger/

rope-wider

While not a first-hand personal experience, I have had friends who knew they were in the last few months of their life and had them share some of the wisdom facing death brought them. To a person the near end of days brought a kinder and a gentler nature.

My friends who were faced with a soon to come reality of dying seemed to love more deeply and express how they felt more openly. Things mattered little and people were about all they cared about. Their primary regrets I recall them sharing were not doing things they had wanted to do, working/chasing money too much and not spending more time with people they loved.

No one close to me wrote down their thoughts as death drew near, but what is just below I believe expresses what they left behind in their own way.

– STOP
Give yourself permission to take a moment to really look at yourself & where you are.

– CLEAR
Create some room for those voices in your head to speak their mind, & then try to hear them.

– SHIFT
Be fearless with change – it might be the best thing you ever did.

– RELEASE
Let go those things that aren’t a reflection of who you want to be & who you really are.

– EMBODY
Be what you were meant to be in all its crazy shapes and guises – why wait?

– ADORE
Love who you have been, who you are now & who you are going to be – it’s all you.

– ENRICH
Move in a direction that enhances, empowers and deepens your life.

It turns out that no one can imagine what’s really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can’t expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won’t. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That’s neither bad nor good, but it is real.

From a last post by Derek K Miller of Vancouver, Canada on May 4, 2011, shortly before his death from cancer.

Two friends now gone taught me a great deal about living by how they acted facing death. Tears well up as I think about Mac and Bill (better know as “The Banger”) and how much I love them still, even in their absence, and how grateful I am my life was blessed with their presence.

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying.
Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day.
Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now!
There are only so many tomorrows.”
Pope Paul VI

 

A Tiny, Miniscule Ripple

/ James Browning

luxfon_com-2330

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One hundred twenty-eight years ago “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler was first published. The inspiration for the poem came as the then single Ms. Wheeler was traveling. She encountered a young woman dressed in black sitting across the aisle from her, crying. Miss Wheeler sat next to her and sought to comfort her for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, the poet was so depressed that she could barely attend the scheduled festivities she had traveled to attend. That evening as she looked at her own radiant face in a mirror, she suddenly recalled the sorrowful widow. It was at that moment she wrote the opening lines of “Solitude”.

What good fodder for thoughts of gratitude Mrs. Wilcox’s poetry above and below are for me this morning. Her words are nothing earth shattering, but then the most valuable wisdom rarely is. The commonality of many profound insights can easily be missed because long knowing the words can cause one to never fully accept or grasp their meaning.

Today I will be a little more understanding and forgiving of those who act differently than I think they should. Having no idea of pain the and grief someone may be bearing inside, unseen, I endeavor to show kindness more and appreciate it better when it is shown to me. That will, at best, send a tiny, miniscule ripple into the world. However, even in its smallness the little wave will make a positive difference. Every tiny motion for good always does and comes back multiplied to its sender.

It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Extremes of Despair and Gladness

/ James Browning

sunclouds

I wish some of my past could be erased; those parts I dislike most. Some were done to me, but many are things I did to others. It’s a hundred times harder to forgive myself than it is find forgiveness for another. My ability to let go beating myself up has improved a lot since I began successfully disputing my own BS a few years ago, but it’s still challenging, especially in a ‘down’ time.

Everyone messes up. Me, you, the neighbors, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, King David, the Buddha, everybody.

It’s important to acknowledge mistakes, feel appropriate remorse, and learn from them so they don’t happen again. But most people keep beating themselves up way past the point of usefulness: they’re unfairly self-critical.

For most people, that inner critic is continually yammering away, looking for something, anything, to find fault with. It magnifies small failings into big ones, punishes you over and over for things long past, ignores the larger context, and doesn’t credit you for your efforts to make amends.

Therefore, you really need your inner protector to stick up for you: to put your weaknesses and misdeeds in perspective, to highlight your many good qualities surrounding your lapses, to encourage you to keep getting back on the high road even if you’ve gone down the low one, and – frankly – to tell that inner critic to Shut Up.

The only wholesome purpose of guilt, shame, or remorse is learning – not punishment! – so that you don’t mess up in that way again. Anything past the point of learning is just needless suffering. Plus excessive guilt, etc., actually gets in the way of you contributing to others and helping make this world a better place, by undermining your energy, mood, confidence, and sense of worth. Author and neuropsychologist Dr. Rich Hanson http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-art-of-self-forgiveness

My gratitude is never stronger than when I come back to the ‘real world’ after a bout of cycling depression. If I am willing to get in the ring with the big “D.” and fight it things get better faster than if I just wait for it to pass.

There is darkness inside all of us… that part of our soul that is irreparably damaged by the very trials and tribulations of life. We are what we are because of it, or perhaps in spite of it. Some use it as a shield to hide behind, others as an excuse to do unconscionable things. But, truly, the darkness is simply a piece of the whole, neither good nor evil unless you make it so. Jenna Maclaine

There is no doubt that I appreciate contentment more than many people. Existing within a world of depression’s darkness and shadow even for a short time makes every breathe more precious when the lightness of ‘normal’ returns. You won’t hear many whines for I know it is the down times that ultimately make being alive so cherished. The wider the gap between the extremes of despair and gladness, the better I can bear the former and more I am grateful for the latter. Oh, what a difference a day makes!

I now see how owning our story
and loving ourselves through that process
is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Brene Brown

Light Into the Darkness

/ James Browning

600201_430092240364176_819329056_nb

I thought depression had mostly been put behind me. Things were looking up. Reclaiming my life for my complete own was arriving. I was happier than I have been in a long time ever. Having reduced my stress load and been true to my hopes it seemed I had outrun depression. But the little monster was always running behind waiting for me to stop looking over my shoulder so it could sneak up on me.

The brand of depression I wrestle with is far from the worst kind. Mine cycles in and out coming for a few days now and again. Once again I have been reminded there is no cure. All I can do rely on the methods that work to fight it off making its duration as short as possible and its intensity no more than it has to be.

How do I fight depression? Being with people I care about. Reading. Making myself get up and do things. Listening to music. Watching a movie. Taking naps. Spending time outside. Going for a walk. Writing down what I feel. The most important thing is to do something and not just sit and lay around!

Most of the time being depressed sneaks up on me. Something Elizabeth Gilbert wrote describes how my depression comes: “When you’re lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you’ve just wandered off the path, that you’ll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it’s time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don’t even know from which direction the sun rises anymore.”

The greatest weapon I have against being depressed is remembering it only lasts for a little while and passes. If I pay good attention each bout almost always teaches me something.

Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better. Ranier Maria Rilke

It feels almost unnatural to attempt to find gratefulness for the depression that is upon me, but in my effort the shadow is already growing lighter just with this writing. I refuse to suffer in secret anymore. As the veil lifts over the next day or two as it always does, I will hold on tightly with gratitude to the knowing that it has been such times that hallowed me to be able to contain the depth of feeling I am capable of.

Don’t think about all those things you fear,
Just be glad to be here.
From the song “Hayling”
by FC Kahuna

Another Heart Whispers Back

/ James Browning

Woman whispering in man's ear

At a time in history when we are communicating more rapidly than ever – via texts, tweets and email volleys, one after the next – it seems there is hardly anyone among us who couldn’t use some tips to facilitate more heartfelt communication for our in-person interactions with the people we care about most.

1. Tell them how important they are, often. Here’s a wake-up call for you: No matter how sure you are of someone’s love, it’s always nice to be reminded of it. Loving someone and having them love you back is the most precious phenomenon in the world, and it should be expressed as such. Be straightforward. If you adore someone today, show them. Hearts are often confused and broken by thoughtful words left unspoken and loving deeds left undone.

2. Communicate your feelings openly. Express how you truly feel. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Give the important people in your life the information they need, rather than expecting them to know the unknowable. Express your fears, tears, doubts and insecurities – let your loved ones experience YOU. Have the courage to be yourself in front of them. To be fully seen by someone, in raw form, and be adored anyhow, is what love is.

3. Speak the truth. As a wise man once said, “I tell the truth because it’s the easiest thing to remember.” Living through a facade puts an incredible burden on your emotional well-being. Speaking the truth, even and most often when it hurts, frees mental space and increases your ability to connect with the people you care about.

4. Ask thoughtful questions and listen intently. Too often we underestimate the power of a thoughtful question and a listening ear that’s fully present and focused. Although it’s a simple act, it may very well be the most powerful act of caring – one which has the potential to turn a life around. Listening is a sincere attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another that both attracts and heals, perhaps without ever saying a word.

5. Let your actions speak for themselves. Actions often speak much louder than words. When you love someone you have to act accordingly. They will be able to tell how you feel about them simply by the way you treat them over the long-term. You can say sorry a thousand times, or say “I love you” as much as you want, but if you’re not going to prove that the things you say are true, they aren’t.

6. Touch has a lasting memory. Sometimes reaching out and taking someone’s hand is the beginning of a beautiful journey. Sometimes a long hug speaks louder than all the words in the world. And sometimes, quite frankly, a moment of touching is the difference between hopeless despair and the ability to carry on. Physical touch can make or break a relationship and can communicate respect or ridicule.

What’s here was taken from an article at a website called “Marc and Angel Hack Life”. It’s filled with good advice for living, loving and flourishing. I am grateful to have found it and recommend it highly. http://www.marcandangel.com/2013/04/23/6-ways-to-speak-well-to-your-loved-ones/

Every heart sings a song, incomplete,
until another heart whispers back.
Plato