Hardhome
HBO's Game of Thrones, Season 5, Episode 8
Daenerys: So you want to advise me? Very well. What would you have me do with him? I swore I would kill him if he ever returned.
Tyrion: I know.
D: Why should the people trust a queen who can't keep her promises?
T: Whomever Ser Jorah was when he started informing on you, he is no longer that man. I can't remember ever seeing a sane man as devoted to anything as he is to serving you. He claims he would kill for you and die for you and nothing I ever witnessed gives me reason to doubt him.
And yet, he did betray you.
Did he have an opportunity to confess his betrayal?
D: Yes. Many opportunities.
T: And did he?
D: No, not until forced to do so.
T: He worships you.
He is in love with you, I think.
But he did not trust you with the truth. An unpleasant truth, to be sure, but one of great significance to you. He did not trust that you would be wise enough to forgive him.
D: So, I should kill him?
T: A ruler who kills those devoted to her is not a ruler who inspires devotion. And you're going to need to inspire devotion, a lot of it, if you're ever going to rule across the Narrow Sea.
But you cannot have him by your side when you do.
D: Remove Ser Jorah from the city.
[Cut to Ser Jorah being escorted out of Meereen]
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Friday, June 5, 2015
Tend to the Wound
Turn Your Attention to the Arrow in Your Heart
Bindu Wiles
If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. I would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart and relate to the wound.
- Pema Chodron
Human nature is a curious and often paradoxical thing. We often act with compassion toward others who are suffering but never consider doing the same for ourselves. We have a compassion double standard. If we saw someone bleeding, we would jump into action to tend to the person’s wound right away. We would place all our heartfelt and focused attention on the wounded instead of yelling at the person who caused the wound. We would stay right there with them and take care of the most important thing — the wound and the hurt.
[...]
It would be so wonderful that if the next time we felt hurt by the world, or by someone else, we focused on the arrow that landed in our heart. Instead of spending time and energy telling that person about our boundaries and what’s acceptable and how they should communicate better, and all the things we think they should do so that we can feel right and better, we could turn our gaze back to our own wounded heart, lingering there with great kindness and gentleness for however long it took to feel better.
[...]
By looking at our past and doing our healing work, we not only free ourselves, but we free others from our entrapping projections onto them. We no longer demand that they change in order for us to feel better.
Bindu Wiles
If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. I would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart and relate to the wound.
- Pema Chodron
Human nature is a curious and often paradoxical thing. We often act with compassion toward others who are suffering but never consider doing the same for ourselves. We have a compassion double standard. If we saw someone bleeding, we would jump into action to tend to the person’s wound right away. We would place all our heartfelt and focused attention on the wounded instead of yelling at the person who caused the wound. We would stay right there with them and take care of the most important thing — the wound and the hurt.
[...]
It would be so wonderful that if the next time we felt hurt by the world, or by someone else, we focused on the arrow that landed in our heart. Instead of spending time and energy telling that person about our boundaries and what’s acceptable and how they should communicate better, and all the things we think they should do so that we can feel right and better, we could turn our gaze back to our own wounded heart, lingering there with great kindness and gentleness for however long it took to feel better.
[...]
By looking at our past and doing our healing work, we not only free ourselves, but we free others from our entrapping projections onto them. We no longer demand that they change in order for us to feel better.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Like a Small Child
Containment
A.E. Stallings
So long I have been carrying myself
Carefully, carefully, like a small child
With too much water in a real glass
Clasped in two hands, across a space as vast
As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves
That start to rile the little inland sea
And slap against its cliffs' transparency,
Revise and meet, double their amplitude,
Harmonizing doubt from many ifs.
Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood.
Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child
Looks up to find a face to match the scolding,
And just as he does, the vessel he was holding
Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf.
A.E. Stallings
So long I have been carrying myself
Carefully, carefully, like a small child
With too much water in a real glass
Clasped in two hands, across a space as vast
As living rooms, while gazes watch the waves
That start to rile the little inland sea
And slap against its cliffs' transparency,
Revise and meet, double their amplitude,
Harmonizing doubt from many ifs.
Distant frowns like clouds begin to brood.
Soon there is overbrimming. Soon the child
Looks up to find a face to match the scolding,
And just as he does, the vessel he was holding
Is almost set down safely on the bookshelf.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Life Sucks v. Thank You
Life Sucks and Thank You
Emily McDowell
"Life Sucks"
and
"Thank You"
cannot coexist
in the
same
moment.
Emily McDowell
"Life Sucks"
and
"Thank You"
cannot coexist
in the
same
moment.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
An Introduction: Chump Lady
About Chump Lady
Chump Lady
Chump Lady is a nice person who wants better for you.
If you’re reading on this site, chances are you’ve been cheated on, or know someone who has. You’re not part of the Smug Unknowing class, untouched by infidelity. You’re a chump. You got played and you want to know how to navigate yourself out of this pain.
I’ve got the toolkit right here. Chump Lady is not a site optimistic about reconciliation. I liken reconciliation to a unicorn, a mythical creature I want to believe in, but which is seldom seen. This emphatically is NOT a site to save your marriage — this is a site about saving your sanity.
Who is Chump Lady? She is the friend who sits with you at 3 in the morning, pours you a bowl of raisin bran, and tells you to LEAVE that motherfucker. You deserve better than this. There’s a GOOD life out there without this jerk in it. Move toward it. You’re going to be just fine on the other side of this nightmare.
So why would you listen to a chump?
Because I lived it. And I got to the other side with my soul intact. I spent several years trying to figure out what the hell happened to me when I allowed my life to intersect with a serial cheater’s. Chump Lady is the wisdom that I wish I had the day I woke up in bed with another woman’s thong stuck to me. Chump Lady is the brain dump of everything I learned (painfully, stupidly) about infidelity. (Consider this the trial-tested results of What Not To Do, flubbed by yours truly.)
I also spent over a year trying to reconcile. Enough time to know what a painful time suck that is. Another place I spent a ton of time was online infidelity forums and realized, after reading thousands of stories over six years, that affairs are terribly banal and predictable. Cheaters have their playbook.
This is yours. Welcome!
Chump Lady
Chump Lady is a nice person who wants better for you.
If you’re reading on this site, chances are you’ve been cheated on, or know someone who has. You’re not part of the Smug Unknowing class, untouched by infidelity. You’re a chump. You got played and you want to know how to navigate yourself out of this pain.
I’ve got the toolkit right here. Chump Lady is not a site optimistic about reconciliation. I liken reconciliation to a unicorn, a mythical creature I want to believe in, but which is seldom seen. This emphatically is NOT a site to save your marriage — this is a site about saving your sanity.
Who is Chump Lady? She is the friend who sits with you at 3 in the morning, pours you a bowl of raisin bran, and tells you to LEAVE that motherfucker. You deserve better than this. There’s a GOOD life out there without this jerk in it. Move toward it. You’re going to be just fine on the other side of this nightmare.
So why would you listen to a chump?
Because I lived it. And I got to the other side with my soul intact. I spent several years trying to figure out what the hell happened to me when I allowed my life to intersect with a serial cheater’s. Chump Lady is the wisdom that I wish I had the day I woke up in bed with another woman’s thong stuck to me. Chump Lady is the brain dump of everything I learned (painfully, stupidly) about infidelity. (Consider this the trial-tested results of What Not To Do, flubbed by yours truly.)
I also spent over a year trying to reconcile. Enough time to know what a painful time suck that is. Another place I spent a ton of time was online infidelity forums and realized, after reading thousands of stories over six years, that affairs are terribly banal and predictable. Cheaters have their playbook.
This is yours. Welcome!
Monday, June 1, 2015
An Introduction: Elle
Why a Betrayed Wives Club?
Elle
I created this blog because I not only survived, but triumphed over my husband's infidelity. And I believe you can, too.
But first, you're going to go through hell – and it helps to have some girlfriends to hold your hand while you're doing it. To offer up their hard-won wisdom. To allow you to vent. To be there while you cry, rage, lament and, ultimately, laugh again.
Join the club and join the conversation.
Elle
I created this blog because I not only survived, but triumphed over my husband's infidelity. And I believe you can, too.
But first, you're going to go through hell – and it helps to have some girlfriends to hold your hand while you're doing it. To offer up their hard-won wisdom. To allow you to vent. To be there while you cry, rage, lament and, ultimately, laugh again.
Join the club and join the conversation.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Crying Yes Risk Joy
Snowdrops
Louise Gluck
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
Louise Gluck
Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.
I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--
afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy
in the raw wind of the new world.
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