You Never Gave Up On Me

*press the green button to play the music; turn your speakers on and sing your heart out : )

sung by Crystal Gayle

For all the times you stood by me
Through right and wrong,
For being there to catch me when I’d fall,
I love you for your faith in me,
For all the joys you've given me,
But there’s one thing makes me love you most of all.

You never gave up on me when I was giving love up on you,
Every time I thought this love can't work
You stayed to see it through.
You never gave up on me when I was
Making things rough on you
And you showed me what it really means to love somebody.

And though sometimes we might not see things eye to eye,
You've always met me more than half the way,
So for all the times I've let you down
When you could have packed your things and gone,
I love you most of all because you stayed.

And you never gave up on me
When I was giving love up on you,
Never mattered who was right or wrong,
You stayed to see it through,
You never gave up on me,
When I was making things rough on you,
And you showed me what it really means to love.

There were times I just knew
You did not understand my moods,
All those long and sleepless nights I put us through,
But you stuck by me anyway,
Gave me love everyday
And now there’s nothing,
In this world I wouldn't do for you.

'Cause you never gave up on me,
When I was giving love up on you,
Every time I thought this love can't work,
You stayed to see it through,
You never gave up on me
When I was making things rough on you,
And you showed me what it really means to love.

'Cause you never gave up on me,
When I was giving love up on you,
Every time I thought this love can’t work,
You stayed to see it through,
You never gave up on me
When I was making things rough on you,
And you showed me what it really means to love.

The Power of Listening to One's Heart

excerpts from the e-book i am re-reading today--

when you practice listening to your heart, it will affect men in two ways: either they will respond or they will rebel. There will be some men who will be threatened by your feelings, because they will only be interested in you taking care of them. He is so fragile that he feels he always has to be right, and wants the women in his life to take care of all his needs, like a mother would. When dealing with this immature man, be careful. Consider that it could take a long time to influence such maturity, if even possible.

If your man reacts with anger or aggressiveness when you begin putting these insights into practice, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you did anything wrong. In fact, it’s quite possible that you might be doing everything exactly right. When a woman is heart-centered and utilizes her intuition, it has an amazing affect on a man.

A woman who puts her heart first causes the character of a man to be revealed, whether it is good or bad.

If you are a woman who is both sincere and confident (because you listen to your Heart), you won’t be able to be controlled or shamed. It will infuriate an insecure and injured man, who must dominate every woman in order to distract himself from his own pain. Think of him as having a hole in his heart so deep, it can never be filled. While you might want to try and help him, short of a literal miracle, you can’t. If he isn’t willing to grow you cannot do it for him.

A person who is at ease with himself will feel at ease with a sincere and confident woman, too. They will cheer for your success and confidence (and not bring you down).

***

hmmm... reminds me of somebody i lived with for 10 years, until around some five years ago... and the only reason why i finally saw the light and mustered up the courage to leave ... was when i listened to my Heart.

i was right all along, huh. i've never heard the affirmation for what i did said or explained this way as it is written here now, though.

thank you, dear Heart!!!

My Ideal

"Love is something difficult and it is more difficult than other things because in other conflicts nature herself enjoins men to collect themselves, to take themselves firmly in the hand with all their strength, while in the heightening of love the impulse is to give oneself wholly away.

Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate-?); it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself in another's sake.

So whoever loves must try to act as if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself and collect himself and hold fast to himself; he must work; he must become something!"

-Letters to a Young Poet, Rainier Maria Rilke

***

more from Rilke:

... a state in which there would be space and freedom for growth, and in which each partner would be the means of releasing the other...

... a relation that is meant to be of one human being to another... and this more human love (that will fulfill itself, infinitely considerate and gentle, and good and clear in binding and releasing) will resemble that which we are, with struggle and endeavor preparing, the love that consists in this-- that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

***

from "A Gift from the Sea", Anne Morrow Lindbergh:

I believe there is, after the oyster bed, an opportunity for the best relationship of all: not a limited, mutually exclusive one, like the sunrise shell, and not a functional, dependent one, as in the oyster bed, but the meeting of two whole, fully developed people as persons.

It would be... (from) Scottish philosopher McMurray... a fully personal relationship, that is "a type of relationship into which people enter as persons with the whole of themselves."

Personal relationships have no ulterior motives. They do not serve partial and limited ends. Their value lies entirely in themselves and for the same reason transcends all other values. And that is because they are relations of persons as persons.

***

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules.

The partners do not need to hold tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free...

To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand, only the barest touch in passing.

Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back-- it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together and being invisibly nourished by it.

The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.

But how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble?

It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment, or clutch greedily toward the next. Fear destroys "the winged life."

But, how to exorcise it? It can only be exorcised by its opposite, Love.

When the heart is flooded with Love, there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance.

When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return, when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music-- then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm.

***

from "Living in the Light", Shakti Gawain:

We must be willing to let our relationships reveal themselves to us.

If we tune into ourselves, trust ourselves and express ourselves fully and honestly with each other, the relationship will unfold in its own unique and fascinating way.

Each relationship is an amazing adventure; you never know exactly where it will lead. It keeps changing its mood, flavor, and form from minute to minute, day by day, year to year. At times it may take you closer to one another. At other times it may take you farther apart.

There is one thing you can count on, though. Relationships lived in this way will always take you into deeper levels of yourself and a stronger trust of the Universe. This, in time, will be reflected in a deeper intimacy and closeness with others.

***

Real commitment makes no guarantees about a relationship's form; real commitment allows for the fact that form is constantly changing and that we can trust that process of change.

It opens the door to the true intimacy that is created when people share deeply and honestly with one another.

If two people stay together on this basis, it's because they really want to be together. They continue to find an intensity of love and learning with each other as they change and grow.