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All human beings arrive with an innate capacity for
Joy, Vitality, and Love. But painful or traumatic experiences, or even chronic belittlement or neglect, can obscure or even eclipse these positive feelings.
Joy, vitality, and love make you feel like living a happy meaningful life. They fuel your desire to grow into the best person you can be.
You can't fully eliminate your old thought patterns, but you can create new ones. More about this on the Improving Your Relationship with Yourself and Others page.
Creating the Feeling of Love
It is difficult to get through life when you don't feel loved. You may not have had enough passed your way as a child. The same may be true in your adult life.
If you depend on others to fill this need, you will likely be disappointed at least some of the time. Others aren't always going to have the capacity
to be looking after you. What you can do is learn to fully love yourself. Then you are in charge and there is no one else to blame.
How do you love yourself? It begins not by saying "I love me!" although there isn't really a problem with that. Instead, follow the instructions
on this page,
What Does it Mean to Love Yourself?, and then you will be on the right path. You will start to feel
warmth and inner peace knowing you are taking care of yourself in the best way possible. You will be loving yourself!
Joy Quotes
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." Rabindranath Tagore
"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." Thich Nhat Hanh
Vitality Quotes
"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Vitality! That's the pursuit of life, isn't it?" Katharine Hepburn
Love Quotes
Here are three points of view, from Viktor Frankl (neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor),
the Bible, and Michael Pollan (award-winning journalist and author speaking to his realizations in altered-states therapy.)
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers.
The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart:
The salvation of man is through love and in love." Viktor Frankl
Three of the most important elements in Christianity are faith, hope, and love. The Bible tells us “the greatest of these is love” I Corinthians 13:13
"Platitudes that wouldn't seem out of place on a Hallmark card flow with the force of revealed truth. Love is everything. Okay, but what else did you learn?
No - you must not have heard me; it's everything! Is a platitude so deeply felt still just a platitude? No, I decided. A platitude is precisely what is left of a truth
after it has been drained of all emotion. To resaturate that dried husk with feeling is to see it again for what it is: the loveliest and most deeply rooted of truths,
hidden in plain sight." Michael Pollan
If you believe their points of view, then can you be clever enough to turn the power of love toward yourself, in a big way, every day?
"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." Buddha
"Each moment of joy is small, but they add up."
"The aesthetics of joy: color, curves, and abundance."
"The drive toward joy is the drive toward life."
"Energy determines success."