Leilah Smith

“If the body is at a certain level of alertness and awareness you will see that once it is well rested, it will awaken—that is, if it is eager to come to life. If it is somehow trying to use the bed as a grave, then it is a problem. Keep the body in such a way that it is not longing to avoid or escape life. Maintain it in such a way that it is longing to come awake.”
― Sadhguru, Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

“The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness. With objective consciousness it is possible to see and feel the unity of everything. Attempts to connect these phenomena into some sort of system in a scientific or philosophical way lead to nothing because man cannot reconstruct the idea of the whole starting from separate facts. —George Gurdjieff, The Fourth Way”
― Nicole LePera, How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self

“Moments like these remind me why it’s so hard for men like my husband to helm the ship of emotional labor in a family. It’s not the norm. It’s not the expectation. The societal pressures he grew up with were the polar opposite of mine in terms of emotional labor. Caring was not an expectation for him; in fact, it was tacitly frowned upon as not masculine. The men in his life did not take the time to write letters to their grandmothers, or prepare meals for the family, or take charge as equal parents and partners. Men’s main societal pressure is to be breadwinners. They are expected to put this priority above family, above caring, above emotional labor—always. There is no open space for him to learn, no support system that will help him achieve the full equality he may desire at home. As Tiffany Dufu writes in Drop the Ball, “Until the contributions that women make at work are seen as just as valuable as the contributions women make at home, the contributions that men make at home will never be considered as valuable as the contributions men make at work. Just as women need affirmation on both fronts, so do men.” 5 Yet so often, that affirmation never comes. Their efforts, though praised, are undercut by the overplayed manner in which we give that praise. The pat on the back men get for parenting is akin to the exaltation we give children for messily making their bed or dressing themselves with two different socks and sparkly sandals. We praise the effort and turn a blind eye to the incompetence.”
― Gemma Hartley, Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward

“There are three fundamental phases to psychological and spiritual growth: being with difficult material (e.g., old wounds, anger); releasing it; and replacing it with something more beneficial.”
― Rick Hanson, Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time