Category Archives: Robin’s Reflections

“Death is the unknown in which all of us lived before birth.”

– Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity.

“When you realise that you live in, that indeed you are this moment, now, and no other, you must relax and taste to the full, whether it be pleasure or pain. At once it becomes obvious why this universe exists … The whole problem of justifying nature, of trying to make life mean something in terms of its future, disappears utterly. Obviously it all exists for this moment. It is a dance, and when you are dancing you are not intent on getting somewhere. You go round and round, but not under the illusion that you are pursuing something, or fleeing from the jaws of hell. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.”

– Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity

“While the days of parenting may seem so long, the years are so short.”

– Daniel J. Siegel.

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
but of respect and joy in each other’s life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”

– Richard Bach.

I saw a patient today who, after some months of first struggling with, and now getting the better of, depresssion, said,

“I realise now that happiness is MY responsibility”.

‘By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.’

– A.A. Milne. (from Winnie the Pooh).

“When I say, ‘I love you’, do I come with a full bowl to be shared, or an empty bowl
to be filled?”
– Old Chinese Proverb.

“Whenever our outer world remains stuck, it is incumbent upon us to look, not outward, but inward. It is a call to find the places in ourselves where we are holding on to old ways … Trying to fix the world is like trying to change a movie by manipulating the movie screen. The world as we know it is simply a screen onto which we project our thoughts. Until we change those thoughts, the movie stays the same.”

– Marianne Williamson

“Much of what we do as partners is fundamentally about survival  … Love and war are both conditions of our human brain. Arguably, though, the brain is wired first and foremost for war, rather than for love. Its primary function is to ensure we survive… and it is very good at this… [but] the things we do to keep from getting killed often are exactly the things that keep us from getting into a relationship or staying in one.”

– Stan Tatkin, in Wired for Love.

“Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming:

whenever you’re wrong, admit it;

whenever you’re right, shut up”.

– Ogden Nash

“Where does the discontent start?

You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields.

And to prod all these there’s time, the bastard Time. The end of life is now not so terribly far away – you can see it the way you see the finish line when you come into the stretch – and your mind says, ‘Have I worked enough? Have I eaten enough? Have I loved enough?’

All of these, of course, are the foundations of man’s greatest curse, and perhaps his greatest glory. ‘What has my life meant so far, and what can it mean in the time left to me?’

And now we’re coming to the wicked, poisoned dart: ‘What have I contributed in the Great Ledger? What am I worth?’ And this isn’t vanity or ambition. Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay, no matter how hard they try. It piles up ahead of them. Man owes something to man. If he ignores the debt it poisons him, and if he tries to make payments the debt only increases, and the quality of his gift is the measure of the man.”

– John Steinbeck (in Sweet Thursday).

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:

If you’re alive, it isn’t.”

– Richard Bach.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, fabulous, talented?”. Actually, who are you not to be? You are a Child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

– Nelson Mandela