All quotes from
Rosamund's book
Being
with the way things are calls for an expansion of ourselves. We start from what is, not from what should
be; we encompass contradictions, painful feelings, fears, and imaginings, and –
without fleeing, blaming, or attempting correction--- we learn to soar, like
the far-seeing hawk, over the whole landscape.
Speaking
in possibility springs from the appreciation that what we say creates a
reality; how we define things sets a framework for life to unfold.
Being
with the way things are by closing the exits: escape, denial and blame.
When
we dislike a situation, we tend to put all our attention on how things should
be rather than how they are.
The
capacity to be present to everything that is happening, without resistance,
creates possibility.
What
assumption am I making, that I’m not aware I’m making, that gives me what I
see?
The
only grace you can have is the grace you can imagine.
We
perceive only the sensations we are programmed to receive, and our awareness is
further restricted by the fact that we recognize only those for which we have
mental maps or categories.
Many
of the circumstances that seem to block us in our daily lives may only appear
to do so based on a framework of assumptions we carry with us.
I
am the framework for everything that happens in my life.
A “no”
can seem like a door slamming instead of merely an instance of the way things
are. Yet, were we to take a “no” less
personally, and ourselves less seriously, we might hear something else. We might hear someone saying, "I don’t
see any new possibility here, so I think I’ll stick with my usual way of doing
things”. We might hear within the word
“no” an invitation for enrollment.