I wish Tumblr had a “I feel your pain” button

because I feel terrible whenever I “like” one of your sad text posts

and it looks like I enjoy watching you suffer

because I don’t

I really don’t

at that point I like to think of it as just giving love to someone who needs it. a “give love” button as opposed to a “like” - the ambiguity of the heart leaves a little wiggle room, I hope (well, for the heart-giver. I suppose seeing X liked your POST OF SORROW must be very disheartening no matter what)

ohapoeticsoul:

Some guidelines for loving:

1. Tell them about their brilliance. They likely can’t see it and they don’t know its immensity, but you can see it, and you can illuminate it for them.

2. Be authentic, and give others the gift of the real you and a real relationship. Ask your real questions. Share your real beliefs. Go for your real dreams. Tell your truth.

3. Don’t confuse “authenticity” with sharing every complaint, resentment, or petty reaction in the name of “being yourself.” Meditate, write, or do yoga to work through anxiety, resentment, and stress on your own so you don’t hand off those negative moods to everyone around you. Sure, share sadness, honest dilemmas, and fears, but be mindful: don’t pollute.

4. Listen, listen, listen. Don’t listen to determine if you agree or disagree. Listen to get to know what is true for the person in front of you. Get to know an inner landscape that is different from your own, and enjoy the journey. Remember that if, in any conversation, nothing piqued your curiosity and nothing surprised you, you weren’t really listening.

5. Don’t waste your time or energy thinking about how they need to be different.  Really. Chuck that whole thing. Their habits are their habits. Their personalities are their personalities. Let them be, and work on what you want to change about you—not what you think would be good to change about them.

6. Remember that you don’t have to understand their choices to respect or accept them. 

7. Don’t conflate accepting with being a doormat or betraying yourself. Let them be who they are, entirely. Then, you decide what you need, in light of who they are. Do you need to make a direct request that they change their behavior in some way? Do you need to take care of yourself better? Do you need to set a boundary or to change the relationship? Take care of yourself well, without holding anyone else in contempt.

8. Give of yourself, but never sacrifice or compromise yourself. Stop if resentment is building and retool. Don’t do the martyr thing. It helps no one and nothing.

9. Remember that everyone you encounter was created by divine intelligence and has an important role to play in the universe. Treat them as such.

10. If you want to keep growing emotionally and spiritually for the rest of your life, accept this as your mantra and try to live as if it were true: Everything that I experience from another human being is either love, or a call for love.

What steps do you take to love others?

obviously not perfect, but I just want this here.

broadist:

ATTN: “You look great! Have you lost weight?” is not a compliment. I know it has been the go-to praise-route towards many women since the inception of puberty, but I’d like to put an end to it. Why do I hear this like a broken record every holiday?

Some alternatives:

• You look great! How are your new jobs going?
• You look great! How is your blog doing?
• You look great! Things seem to be going really well for you lately.
• You look great! You’ve been smiling all weekend.
• You look great! I love your dress/hair/shoes/demeanor.
• You look great! You seem really happy.
• You look great! (Period).

I don’t know who started the rumor that “Have you lost weight?” is just about the goddamn nicest thing you can say to a (fat) woman. Let me assure you: it’s not. I haven’t done anything right or wrong or good or bad for appearing to weigh less than the last time you saw me. Don’t congratulate me.

Use your head. Or, at the very least, be more creative with your compliments.

this. absolutely this. also, I would change “a (fat) woman” to anyone, any gender, any sex, any size, any person at all.