Hybrid - Break My Soul

I have posted this song before some years ago, but watching it again reminds me how great this band is. The music, her voice, the video, just everything fits. and the orchestra gives it the extra umpf.

Hybrid - Break My Soul

Shadows on the pavement burn a watermark of you
And every city siren calls your name down every avenue
Falling into contemplation, broken to my knees
But I need no resolution here though it cuts me to the seams

I'm still the same
But you're not going to take me down again
I'm feeling old
That doesn't mean you can break my Soul

See my youth begin to fade through the eyes of a child
And I study every lesson learned that wipes away my smile
And I learn that all your walls are just the cover of a book
Every word a broken promise, every page a heart you took

I'm still the same
But you're not going to take me down again
I'm feeling old
That doesn't mean you can break my Soul
Break My Soul

Buried like a splinter
Rips apart like paper
Blows away like ashes in my hands
No I won't see you later
Go build another castle out of sand
Like ashes in my hands

I'm not drowning in your sea
Believing in you will not be the death of me
Not waiting for the curtain drop
Or waiting for the hurt to stop
Not drowning in a teardrop for your love

Break My Soul – Break My Soul

I'm still the same
But you're not going to take me down again
I'm feeling old
That doesn't mean you can break my Soul

Rob Dougan - Furious Angels

Normally not my kind of music, but the lyrics are very powerful and the video is worth a look.

Rob Dougan - Furious Angels


Like a sentence of death
I got no options left
I've got nothing to show now

I'm down on the ground
I've got seconds to live
And you can't go now

'Cause love like an invisible bullet shot me down
And I'm bleeding, yeah, I'm bleeding
And if you go, furious angels will bring you back to me
Will bring you back to me

You're a dirty needle
You're in my blood and there's no curing me, yeah
I wanna run like the blood from a wound
To a place you can't see me

'Cause love like a blow to the head has left me stunned
And I'm reeling, yeah, I'm reeling
And if you go, furious angels will bring you back to me
Yeah

[Incomprehensible]

You're a cold piece of steel between my ribs
And there's no saving me, yeah
And I can't get up from this wet crimson bed
That you made for me, that you made for me

'Cause love like a knife in the back has cut me down
And I'm bleeding, yeah, I'm bleeding
And if you go, angels will run to defend me
To defend me

'Cause I can't get up, I'm as cold as a stone
I can feel the life fade from me, yeah
I'm down on the ground, I've got seconds to live
And what's that waits for me? Oh, that waits for me

'Cause love like a sentence of death left me stunned
And I'm reeling, yeah, I'm reeling
And if you go, furious angels will bring you back to me
Yeah

[Incomprehensible]

Songwriters
DOUGAN, ROB

Masters of Love

Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.

Every day in June, the most popular wedding month of the year, about 13,000 American couples will say “I do,” committing to a lifelong relationship that will be full of friendship, joy, and love that will carry them forward to their final days on this earth.

Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people.

The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction.

Of all the people who get married, only three in ten remain in healthy, happy marriages, as psychologist Ty Tashiro points out in his book "The Science of Happily Ever After," which was published earlier this year.

Social scientists first started studying marriages by observing them in action in the 1970s in response to a crisis: Married couples were divorcing at unprecedented rates. Worried about the impact these divorces would have on the children of the broken marriages, psychologists decided to cast their scientific net on couples, bringing them into the lab to observe them and determine what the ingredients of a healthy, lasting relationship were.

Was each unhappy family unhappy in its own way, as Tolstoy claimed, or did the miserable marriages all share something toxic in common?

Psychologist John Gottman was one of those researchers. For the past four decades, he has studied thousands of couples in a quest to figure out what makes relationships work. I recently had the chance to interview Gottman and his wife Julie, also a psychologist, in New York City. Together, the renowned experts on marital stability run The Gottman Institute, which is devoted to helping couples build and maintain loving, healthy relationships based on scientific studies.

John Gottman began gathering his most critical findings in 1986, when he set up “The Love Lab” with his colleague Robert Levenson at the University of Washington. Gottman and Levenson brought newlyweds into the lab and watched them interact with each other.

With a team of researchers, they hooked the couples up to electrodes and asked the couples to speak about their relationship, like how they met, a major conflict they were facing together, and a positive memory they had. As they spoke, the electrodes measured the subjects' blood flow, heart rates, and how much they sweat they produced. Then the researchers sent the couples home and followed up with them six years later to see if they were still together.

From the data they gathered, Gottman separated the couples into two major groups: the masters and the disasters. The masters were still happily together after six years. The disasters had either broken up or were chronically unhappy in their marriages.

When the researchers analyzed the data they gathered on the couples, they saw clear differences between the masters and disasters. The disasters looked calm during the interviews, but their physiology, measured by the electrodes, told a different story. Their heart rates were quick, their sweat glands were active, and their blood flow was fast. Following thousands of couples longitudinally, Gottman found that the more physiologically active the couples were in the lab, the quicker their relationships deteriorated over time.

But what does physiology have to do with anything? The problem was that the disasters showed all the signs of arousal — of being in fight-or-flight mode — in their relationships. Having a conversation sitting next to their spouse was, to their bodies, like facing off with a saber-toothed tiger.

Even when they were talking about pleasant or mundane facets of their relationships, they were prepared to attack and be attacked. This sent their heart rates soaring and made them more aggressive toward each other. For example, each member of a couple could be talking about how their days had gone, and a highly aroused husband might say to his wife, “Why don’t you start talking about your day. It won’t take you very long.”

The masters, by contrast, showed low physiological arousal. They felt calm and connected together, which translated into warm and affectionate behavior, even when they fought. It’s not that the masters had, by default, a better physiological make-up than the disasters; it’s that masters had created a climate of trust and intimacy that made both of them more emotionally and thus physically comfortable.

Gottman wanted to know more about how the masters created that culture of love and intimacy, and how the disasters squashed it. In a follow-up study in 1990, he designed a lab on the University of Washington campus to look like a beautiful bed and breakfast retreat.

He invited 130 newlywed couples to spend the day at this retreat and watched them as they did what couples normally do on vacation: cook, clean, listen to music, eat, chat, and hang out. And Gottman made a critical discovery in this study — one that gets at the heart of why some relationships thrive while others languish.

Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife — a sign of interest or support — hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.

The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that.

People who turned toward their partners in the study responded by engaging the bidder, showing interest and support in the bid. Those who didn’t — those who turned away — would not respond or respond minimally and continue doing whatever they were doing, like watching TV or reading the paper. Sometimes they would respond with overt hostility, saying something like, “Stop interrupting me, I’m reading.”

These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.

By observing these types of interactions, Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples — straight or gay, rich or poor, childless or not — will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity; or contempt, criticism, and hostility?
“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have,” Gottman explained in an interview, “which is this: they are scanning social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes.”

“It’s not just scanning environment,” chimed in Julie Gottman. “It’s scanning the partner for what the partner is doing right or scanning him for what he’s doing wrong and criticizing versus respecting him and expressing appreciation.”

Contempt, they have found, is the number one factor that tears couples apart. People who are focused on criticizing their partners miss a whopping 50 percent of positive things their partners are doing and they see negativity when it’s not there.

People who give their partner the cold shoulder — deliberately ignoring the partner or responding minimally — damage the relationship by making their partner feel worthless and invisible, as if they’re not there, not valued. And people who treat their partners with contempt and criticize them not only kill the love in the relationship, but they also kill their partner's ability to fight off viruses and cancers. Being mean is the death knell of relationships.

Kindness, on the other hand, glues couples together. Research independent from theirs has shown that kindness (along with emotional stability) is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. Kindness makes each partner feel cared for, understood, and validated—feel loved. “My bounty is as boundless as the sea,” says Shakespeare’s Juliet. “My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite.” That’s how kindness works too: there’s a great deal of evidence showing the more someone receives or witnesses kindness, the more they will be kind themselves, which leads to upward spirals of love and generosity in a relationship.

There are two ways to think about kindness. You can think about it as a fixed trait: either you have it or you don’t. Or you could think of kindness as a muscle. In some people, that muscle is naturally stronger than in others, but it can grow stronger in everyone with exercise. Masters tend to think about kindness as a muscle. They know that they have to exercise it to keep it in shape. They know, in other words, that a good relationship requires sustained hard work.

“If your partner expresses a need,” explained Julie Gottman, “and you are tired, stressed, or distracted, then the generous spirit comes in when a partner makes a bid, and you still turn toward your partner.”

In that moment, the easy response may be to turn away from your partner and focus on your iPad or your book or the television, to mumble “Uh huh” and move on with your life, but neglecting small moments of emotional connection will slowly wear away at your relationship. Neglect creates distance between partners and breeds resentment in the one who is being ignored.

The hardest time to practice kindness is, of course, during a fight—but this is also the most important time to be kind. Letting contempt and aggression spiral out of control during a conflict can inflict irrevocable damage on a relationship.

“Kindness doesn’t mean that we don’t express our anger,” Julie Gottman explained, “but the kindness informs how we choose to express the anger. You can throw spears at your partner. Or you can explain why you’re hurt and angry, and that’s the kinder path.”
John Gottman elaborated on those spears: “Disasters will say things differently in a fight. Disasters will say ‘You’re late. What’s wrong with you? You’re just like your mom.’ Masters will say ‘I feel bad for picking on you about your lateness, and I know it’s not your fault, but it’s really annoying that you’re late again.’”

For the hundreds of thousands of couples getting married each June — and for the millions of couples currently together, married or not — the lesson from the research is clear: If you want to have a stable, healthy relationship, exercise kindness early and often.

When people think about practicing kindness, they often think about small acts of generosity, like buying each other little gifts or giving one another back rubs every now and then. While those are great examples of generosity, kindness can also be built into the very backbone of a relationship through the way partners interact with each other on a day-to-day basis, whether or not there are back rubs and chocolates involved.

One way to practice kindness is by being generous about your partner’s intentions. From the research of the Gottmans, we know that disasters see negativity in their relationship even when it is not there. An angry wife may assume, for example, that when her husband left the toilet seat up, he was deliberately trying to annoy her. But he may have just absent-mindedly forgotten to put the seat down.

Or say a wife is running late to dinner (again), and the husband assumes that she doesn’t value him enough to show up to their date on time after he took the trouble to make a reservation and leave work early so that they could spend a romantic evening together. But it turns out that the wife was running late because she stopped by a store to pick him up a gift for their special night out.

Imagine her joining him for dinner, excited to deliver her gift, only to realize that he’s in a sour mood because he misinterpreted what was motivating her behavior. The ability to interpret your partner’s actions and intentions charitably can soften the sharp edge of conflict.

“Even in relationships where people are frustrated, it’s almost always the case that there are positive things going on and people trying to do the right thing,” psychologist Ty Tashiro told me. “A lot of times, a partner is trying to do the right thing even if it’s executed poorly. So appreciate the intent.”

Another powerful kindness strategy revolves around shared joy. One of the telltale signs of the disaster couples Gottman studied was their inability to connect over each other’s good news. When one person in the relationship shared the good news of, say, a promotion at work with excitement, the other would respond with wooden disinterest by checking his watch or shutting the conversation down with a comment like, “That’s nice.”

We’ve all heard that partners should be there for each other when the going gets rough. But research shows that being there for each other when things go right is actually more important for relationship quality. How someone responds to a partner’s good news can have dramatic consequences for the relationship.

In one study from 2006, psychological researcher Shelly Gable and her colleagues brought young adult couples into the lab to discuss recent positive events from their lives. They psychologists wanted to know how partners would respond to each other’s good news. They found that, in general, couples responded to each other’s good news in four different ways that they called: passive destructive, active destructive, passive constructive, and active constructive.

Let’s say that one partner had recently received the excellent news that she got into medical school. She would say something like “I got into my top choice med school!”

If her partner responded in a passive destructive manner, he would ignore the event. For example, he might say something like: “You wouldn’t believe the great news I got yesterday! I won a free t-shirt!”

If her partner responded in a passive constructive way, he would acknowledge the good news, but in a half-hearted, understated way. A typical passive constructive response is saying “That’s great, babe” as he texts his buddy on his phone.

In the third kind of response, active destructive, the partner would diminish the good news his partner just got: “Are you sure you can handle all the studying? And what about the cost? Med school is so expensive!”

Finally, there’s active constructive responding. If her partner responded in this way, he stopped what he was doing and engaged wholeheartedly with her: “That’s great! Congratulations! When did you find out? Did they call you? What classes will you take first semester?”

Among the four response styles, active constructive responding is the kindest. While the other response styles are joy-killers, active constructive responding allows the partner to savor her joy and gives the couple an opportunity to bond over the good news. In the parlance of the Gottmans, active constructive responding is a way of “turning toward” your partners bid (sharing the good news) rather than “turning away” from it.

Active constructive responding is critical for healthy relationships. In the 2006 study, Gable and her colleagues followed up with the couples two months later to see if they were still together. The psychologists found that the only difference between the couples who were together and those who broke up was active constructive responding. Those who showed genuine interest in their partner’s joys were more likely to be together. In an earlier study, Gable found that active constructive responding was also associated with higher relationship quality and more intimacy between partners. 

There are many reasons why relationships fail, but if you look at what drives the deterioration of many relationships, it’s often a breakdown of kindness. As the normal stresses of a life together pile up—with children, career, friend, in-laws, and other distractions crowding out the time for romance and intimacy—couples may put less effort into their relationship and let the petty grievances they hold against one another tear them apart.

In most marriages, levels of satisfaction drop dramatically within the first few years together. But among couples who not only endure, but live happily together for years and years, the spirit of kindness and generosity guides them forward.

Original article: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/#ixzz3f8en34CC

Anna RF - On the way to you.

What a nice song.

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

From the desert I come from the land of send
Bringing you my heart so you’ll understand
Everything I want is you to be my friend
And I’m on my way to you
Deep inside I know and I believe in love
Don’t care how you call the thing above
Underneath it all you can hear my heart beating just for you

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

Each of us came from a different place
But together we will live without those chains
Every night I dream and I see your face and it always light my way
I’ve learn to read the Signs along the path
And I realized love is the inner breath
No matter what would come you should always laugh
And life will smile to you

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
With a map that you drew

I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you
I’m on the way to you

I’m on the waaaaay!

Liam Finn - Cold Feet

You know that feeling? The cold feet feeling? its horrible isnt it...

Liam Finn - Cold Feet

Saw you in the street
Left me in a state of wondering
If you even notice(d) me
Acting like a nervous tic teen

Got you undermined on demand
Like a dream to have you on my arm
But even if you wanted to
I was gonna need a bit of proof

There's a space for me
On the edge of your seat
Where you wanted me to sit
Where you wanted me to sit

But my will is weak
And I'm tired of cold feet
Thought you wanted it to last
Thought you wanted it to last

In the golden afternoon
I can hear you in the other room
Fixing things with sellotape
Bound together by the myths you made

No-one ever seems
You're blowing faiths like a stolen beam of the sun
You know I don't need anyone
I just wanna have a drink or two

There's a space for me
On the edge of your seat
Where you wanted me to sit
Where you wanted me to sit

But my will is weak
And I'm tired of cold feet
Thought you wanted it to last
Thought you wanted it to last

There's a space for me
On the edge of your seat
Where you wanted me to sit
Where you wanted me to sit

But my will is weak
And I'm tired of cold feet
Thought you wanted it to last
Thought you wanted it to last

And the world you live
Is so convincing
Will the audience laugh?
Will the audience wilt?

Going home next week
And I'm tired of cold feet
Thought you wanted it to last
Thought you wanted it to last

Fink - This is the thing.....

"This Is The Thing"

I don't know if you notice anything different.
It's getting dark and it's getting cold and the nights are getting long
And I don't know if you even notice at all
That I'm long gone

And the things that keep us apart
Keep me alive
And the things that keep me alive
Keep me alone
This is the thing

I don't know if you notice anything missing
Like the leaves on the trees or my clothes all over the floor
And I don't know if you even notice at all
'Cause I was real quiet when I closed the door

And the things that keep us apart
Keep me alive
And the things that keep me alive
Keep me alone
This is the thing

And I don't know if you notice anything different
I don't know if you even notice at all

This is the thing

February 2011

was a lifetime ago....

The events in my personal life of the last months of 2010 and beginning of 2011 until now do require some musictherapy, so here it goes:

Goo Goo Dolls: Iris

and break it did.... And it was foolish of me to think, that it ever could have gone somewhere. But I dont regret any of it.


She says: Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.

Seriously, Natalie, I wish you get it, with happiness and all. And even though it still hurts but may you get there.

Personally I am not sure and still thinking about it. Actually there is very little right now I am really sure about, but I guess that is one of the inevitable parts of the journey, the bit they call picking up the pieces after falling apart and before getting up again. I am slower than others and I hang on longer than others, but that is me. What is on the cards next though? For the first time in my life I am thinking about getting a house. A small house, like a cottage or so. Here in Ireland. But it would be my house.... well, that would be an interesting one, have not done something that big before. Because its a big one, like real big. I am not there yet, but we ll see.

Coldplay - Fix you

Rascal Flatts - Broken Road

Taj Mahal - Take a Giant Step

Katy Perry - Not like the movies

Philip Poisel - Halt mich

Hope...

Neill Young  - Soundtrack Deadman

The New Radicals - Someday we'll know

  

Even though it was never meant to be, i like to think, that this would have been possible. In the best of all possible worlds, that is...

Thought of You - by Ryan Woodward 

 

The Truth and nothing but the truth in one sentence...

 

Trading Yesterday - Shattered (MTT Version)

And Ive lost who I am
And I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken

I carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                    i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)



by Edward Estlin cummings (1894-1962)

And I will not stop doing so....

Courage my heart

I prefer the german version, it just flows nicer, still - the english version carries the message....

 

Steps


As every blossom fades
and all youth sinks into old age,
so every life’s design, each flower of wisdom,
attains its prime and cannot last forever.
The heart must submit itself courageously
to life’s call without a hint of grief,
A magic dwells in each beginning,
protecting us, telling us how to live.


High purposed we shall traverse realm on realm,
cleaving to none as to a home,
the world of spirit wishes not to fetter us
but raise us higher, step by step.
Scarce in some safe accustomed sphere of life
have we establish a house, then we grow lax;
only he who is ready to journey forth
can throw old habits off.


Maybe death’s hour too will send us out new-born
towards undreamed-lands,
maybe life’s call to us will never find an end
Courage my heart, take leave and fare thee well.

STUFEN
 
Wie jede Blüte welkt
und jede Jugend dem Alter weicht,
blüht jede Lebensstufe,
blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muss das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
in and're, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
der uns beschützt und der uns hilft zu leben.
Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
an keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
er will uns Stuf' um Stufe heben, weiten!
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
und traulich eingewohnt,
so droht Erschlaffen!
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
mag lähmender Gewohnheit sich entraffen.
Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden:
des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden.
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!

Neill Young

And I used to hate his music. Not that I didnt appreciate the music, but the guy I was sharing a house with at the time was always playing Neill Young at blaring volume. And not just because of that, more likely because of the girl who was living with us. Anyways in the end, the girl did both our headings for awhile but the guy and I became really good friends and Neill Young is just awesome!

Neill Young - One life

"Old Man"

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things
that don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

I can so identify with this, like.

All you need is Love

The lads from Liverpool said it more than 40 years ago:

and by the way: FC Liverpool far from written off