Once in a Lifetime

Cathy Kelly

Once in a lifetime

'* Only one person can change your life and that's you. Don't wait for anyone else to do it, Prince Charming or otherwise. Be your own prince.

* When you're annoyed, don't speak from that place inside yourself that nurtures all past hurts. That will just make it all worse.

* Sometimes, you can't fix it. Other people, for example. You can't fix them. You just have to decide whether it's worth hanging around until they fix themselves- or, if it's worth hanging around even though they may never decide to fix themselves. Your choice over the hanging around, but when it comes to the fixing, you have no power. There's times when you just have to let go. Letting go works for a lot of time, actually.

* Like a fairy story in reverse. Like sleeping Beauty. Except, in this case, the prince hadn't woken her from a hundred- year- sleep he'd made her age one hundred years in a moment.
* Learn how to say no. Practice. Say it at least one every day and you know what? you'll get better at it.

* A gratitude journal, where you wrote down all the things you were grateful for. Eventually, some alchemy was supposed to take place and the act of writing about being grateful somehow made you actually grateful.

* Life is what happens when you're making other plans

* It's never too late to stop and change the way you're going. Never.

* What doesn't destroy you makes you stronger. I just hope you don't have to go through that process in the first place. But if you do, it's true. Trust me.

* Empathy is like coils of smoke reaching blue tendrils into the air. If they're let go, they can fly wherever they want, reach people, touch them and help. It's a type of global love: the great unconscious doing good.

* Live for now. Not for tomorrow or yesterday. Now. You don't know what will happen tomorrow, and yesterday is gone, so all you have is this moment. Enjoy it.

* There was so much negative energy about Mondays. She was willing to bet that none of the world's greatest minds had ever done anything brilliant on a Monday. Nobody ever mentioned when Einstein had put the finishing touches to his Theory of Relativity, or when Marie Curie discovered radium. But it definitely wasn't on the first day of the week.

* Fight for who you are. It takes a long time to find who you are, but when you do, take care of that person. She's one of the most precious friends you'll ever have.

* The wave of shame that rose up in her was physical. Shame could be physical. If flirtation made a person blush with a rosy hue, then shame was a fire of pain.

* Trust your instincts. I didn't trust any part of me, so I discounted my instincts too. But when I thought about it, nine times out of ten, my original instinct had been right. I just hadn't paid attention to it.

* Grief is a journey through a changing landscape and it takes everybody a different amount of time to travel.

* Life seems so long when you're in the middle of it, but when you know it's going to end soon, you realize how little time you have on earth. Don't waste it.

* Detach with love. You have to let go.

* Get down on your knees everyday and say thank you. Even if you don't feel grateful all the time, practice it, and one day you will appreciate all the good things. And that's one of the greatest gifts of all.

* Im not afraid of what they think. That's up to them and we're up to us. You can't live your life worrying about what other people think.

* Speak out of love and a desire to make things better.

* You're always said you hate all the crap about 'closure'. You used to call it mumbo jumbo and complain that the world's full of people seeking closure on everything from a bad day at school when they were four to a row with their kids.

* He was a man, you're a woman. We're different. For us, love it a huge part of our lives, for them, it's a segment. They have many segments.

* Love it about putting up with the package you've got.

* It was different for us men, most women were driven by straight forward rules of trying to keep their mate and protect their family. But men were driven by more complex evolutionary needs, and those didn't have to interfere with the family or the job of protecting the people they loved, did they?

* Do what makes you happy. Tell the people you love that you love them. Forget about waiting for a rainy day. Do it now.

* Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Nobody else is going to be able to if you don't first. It's a hard lesson, that one, but important. If you love yourself, you don't let anyone hurt you. Sounds so obvious, but you're be amazed how long it took me to get that.

* Be kind to other women. It really works- most of the time. And even on those days when it doesn't, it'll make you feel better inside. And on the outside, actually! Because spite carves out things in your soul and it carves out things on your face too, the sort of lines that dermatologists say are from the sun or smoking, and are really from spite.'