It isn't enough that a man should live

For a man must love;

It isn't enough that a man should love

For a man should love fully

and be able to bear

both the pain

and the highest joys

of his love.

He must know how to treasure that love,

how to protect it

with all its might,

against the world

that often gets jealous

of those

who have found true love.

Protect it

from the innermost chambers

of your heart

and let not your soul depart

without it.

It is your key

to eternity.

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: love

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Happy Valentines Everyone!  :-)  Today, I would like to bring back one of my most loved articles titled "When I Asked for a Rose". I hope you have a romantic day, enjoy reading:

When I Asked for a Rose

It was January 31, 2000, and Valentines Day seem so near. I was praying to God when I suddenly felt so sad. I felt so lonely. I knew that dreaded day would soon be coming when girls would soon be receiving flowers from their special someone, when they would all go about proudly carrying those flowers, certain of the sincere love of those that offered them. I haven’t got any lover though. So no flowers for me, no bouquet, not even a single red rose.

It was kinda embarassing, but I knew the Lord knew my heart and there was no point in hiding anything. I remained true to my feelings, and I asked God for something I’ve never asked before. I’ve asked Him to send me a rose, just one. I don’t know how it could possibly happen, but I prayed, like a daughter asking something from her dear father. I prayed for a single red rose. I prayed for a small expression of love, a small sign that I am loved, and that I am special as well.

It was a heartfelt prayer, though I never really thought much of it the day after. I guess it was enough for me that I uttered it, and that the Lord heard me. It was already upon God’s hands whether to grant the prayer of silly girls like me.  CLICK here to Continue

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Post tags: love, romance, rose, valentines, when i asked for a rose

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As I proceed with my 21 days of consciously improving my relationship to myself, of loving myself so I could later on love others more, I became aware of one reason that causes many of our heartaches.

I've realized that we are not allowing love in our lives, and for that reason, we are so often lacking in love.  This is however not a conscious choice, but a subconscious response that we do, and unaware of what we do, we are in truth blocking the inward flow of love into our lives.  How so?

By virtue of expectations. By experience or lessons taught us by other people, we have developed certain expectations on how we should be loved.  And if these expectations are not met, we immediately conclude that we are not loved.

But the truth is that we may be loved.  Maybe not in ways we wanted to.  Not in ways we've learned or were taught us, but in ways that person knew best how to love.

The same is true as regards allowing God's love into our lives.  We have certain expectations.  A lot of expectations!  God should do this.  God should be that.  He is All-Powerful and All-Knowing isn't He?  So He should do this if He loves me.

But what if He doesn't do exactly what we want Him to do?  Does it mean He doesn't love us?  But how can we measure His love in the first place?  Are we All-Knowing as He is?

Because of our expectations, we block so much love that should have flowed into our lives.  If we desire to love ourselves more, let us be kinder to ourselves.  Let us allow more love to flow in our hearts.

And if a person expresses love differently, say he is able to show more in deeds than in words, let us extend our understanding and our appreciation.  We are loved! And that's what really counts  :-)

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: allowing love, being loved, love, quote being loved, receiving love

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LOVING YOURSELF

I've noticed that the quality of my relationships improved in proportion to the improvement of my relationship to myself. Indeed, it has drastically increased throughout these years. Even the quality of my suitors improved! :-)

I guess that's one of our main problems, or should I say, the source of many of our problems and frustrations. The inability to love ourselves enough. And more often than not, whenever we fail to do so, we play the blame game with everyone. We blame our boyfriends, we blame our best friends, we blame our parents, we blame the country, we even blame our dog! And that blame game would certainly lead us nowhere. It certainly wouldn't lead us to better relationships with other people.

I have just browsed over the book, “If Love is a Game, These Are the Rules.” It spoke of the same thing. That if we expect to be loved, if we expect to be special, we should learn to love ourselves first and treat ourselves as special. People respond only to how we treat ourselves. If we believe we are not important, guess how they would treat us?

The book also mentioned that treating ourselves special is a habit that has to be formed, and habits are usually formed by repetition, usually in a matter of 21 days.

Today I begin that day. I've been more conscious on the way I treat myself, even in small things. For instance, I usually don't mind the heat of the sun damaging my skin and drying my hair. Now I've used an umbrella and protected myself, the way I wish my boyfriend would have done so if he were here. I also treated myself to good lunch, bought make-up that I liked and even chose the best seat in a cafe. Hmm... was not as easy as I thought. But practice makes perfect they say. And how could we expect others to do these things for us when we couldn't care doing it for ourselves?

I guess I just have to carry on for the next 20 days. If you think you could also benefit from this, why don't you begin today as well? :-)

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: love, loving oneself, loving yourself, relationships, self improvement, Self-Development, taking care of yourself

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What is love to a hypersensitive person? What will this marvelous, unfathomable, incomprehensible, and unpredictable emotion do to a person whose vulnerability almost mimics that of a bare soul, stripped of all the protective shells of the physical; hurt with the slightest blowing of the wind; elated by the faintest glowing of the stars?

What could love do? What could love be? Can it be contained? Can it be grasped? Can it be lived at all at conditions most humans would call as normal?

To a person much more sensitive than most, to one whose normal solitary life is already like that of a passionate lover, love, the only love most people know as love will test whatever the heavens have set as limits for such a human soul on earth.

Only one thing is definite. Such a love would ignite an explosion. And only a miracle can guarantee the salvation of the soul!

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: empath, highly sensitive person, hsp, love, sensitivity, what is love to a hyper-sensitive person

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Not being meant for each other doesn't mean that one has become less, but that there are greater options that can still be worked out.

To turn down a person is not to judge him, but to believe that there is yet another who is truly meant for him and for you.

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: breaking up, love, not meant for each other, relationships

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Image by Thai Jasmine via Flickr

Having the Spirit of Love within you is an indescribable thing. For one, you know that Someone is always there with you, working in ways you do not know.

In the past I've always had a hard time training myself to think of positive thoughts, avoid worries and control my emotions. But no matter how hard I try, I always fail.

Yet with the Sacred Spirit, things happen beyond all human effort. Even during times when I should have been most bitter and miserable, I have peace and joy which no one can take away from me!

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: having the spirit of love, love, power of the spirit, spirit, spirit of god

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We all seek for answers, we all want to make a box and fit everything neatly inside. Yet despite all the advances in science, so many things still can't be explained.

For instance, do you believe in love? In courage? In beauty? How should science explain all these?

Is love nothing more than the outward appearance of things? The fine arrangement of one's molecules? And if it is not, if you tell me that love, as well as beauty consists not only of the external, how can you define it? How can you believe in that which you cannot explain?

Is courage the strength of one's muscles or of one's heart? And what is a heart if not more than an organ pumping blood into one's fragile body? What makes a man courageous and what makes another man a coward? Is it courage to die for the sake of another? Why should a living organism defy nature's law of self-preservation anyway? Why should one die for another creature which would only be tomorrow's dust or another one's fertilizer?

To what extent must we risk our lives? To what extent should we love? And what is love anyways?

Can you grasp it? Can you see it? Can you measure what it can do? Can you explain the reaction of the atoms of a person falling in love? Why must we love anyway? And why is there such a thing as love? Is it a power or a sickness? Is a person who loves still rational or merely crazy?

There are so many things we cannot explain, so many things our minds cannot grasp. Yet is this the most important thing?

To the person who has really known love, there are no more questions, only declarations of the salvation he has found.

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beauty, cannot be defined, courage, hard to explain, love, no explanation, so many things can't be explained, what is beauty, what is life, what is love, when things can't be explained

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At one point or another, maybe we'd arrive at what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes- there is nothing new under the sun. We'd get tired of the cycles we've been so happy about before. We'd care not for the showers of spring, nor for the snow that falls in winter. We'd find the meaninglessness of everything. And as Buddhists believe, we'd realize that we'd soon desire to escape the endless suffering we've subjected ourselves into. The very thing we've desperately desired to possess, the one thing we'd have lusted for would have become our own curse.

For people who seek forever, let a contemplation be made on how that forever is going to be spent and for what need that would serve us all. If not, and if wishes were granted indeed, we may have just been praying for our own hell, a hell we may not be able to escape. There is nothing new under the sun, and everything is passing as this world is whose fate had already been set since its fall. Everything shall come to an end except for one thing, the only thing that needs nothing new under the sun. Indeed, what remains is LOVE, the only thing that yields not to death but makes all things eternal, beautiful and new.  :-)

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: eternity, heaven, hell, immortality, life after death, love, to live forever

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Why did God forbid us to eat the fruit of knowledge? If it is indeed the knowledge of good and evil, why is the knowledge of good forbidden as well?

Knowledge is not bad per se. But knowledge that is apart from God, that is the source of all the evils and suffering we experience today.

We have been tempted from the very beginning. We have been offered enlightenment in exchange for love, and we took it. We didn't know that enlightenment without love is darkness. We didn't know that knowledge apart from God is foolishness. We didn't know.

That is why our fall had been delayed. And that is why forgiveness had been available to men and not to angels. We have been given time. And we have been given the Ultimate Saving Sacrifice of Love. Shall we take it? Or shall we succumb to the eternal fall of living our own lives in a cold dark alley of knowledge apart from the burning love of God?

© Jocelyn Soriano for I Take Off The MASK!, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adam and eve, angels, enlightenment, garden of eden, Genesis, love, paradise, redemption, salvation, the fall, the forbidden fruit, the great lie, the serpent

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