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Imagine You Are Walking In The Woods And You See A Small Dog Sitting By A Tree. As You Approach It, It Suddenly Lunges At You, Teeth Bared. You Are Frightened And Angry. But Then You Notice That One Of Its Legs Is Caught In A Trap. Immediately Your Mood Shifts From Anger To Concern: You See That The Dog's Aggression Is Coming From A Place Of Vulnerability And Pain. This Applies To All Of Us. When We Behave In Hurtful Ways, It Is Because We Are Caught In Some Kind Of Trap. The More We Look Through The Eyes Of Wisdom At Ourselves And One Another, The More We Cultivate A Compassionate Heart.

-Tara Brach

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Imagine You Are Walking

Tara Brach

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Imagine You Are Walking In The Woods And You See A Small Dog Sitting By A Tree. As You Approach It, It Suddenly Lunges At You, Teeth Bared. You Are Frightened And Angry. But Then You Notice That One Of Its Legs Is Caught In A Trap. Immediately Your Mood Shifts From Anger To Concern: You See That The Dog's Aggression Is Coming From A Place Of Vulnerability And Pain. This Applies To All Of Us. When We Behave In Hurtful Ways, It Is Because We Are Caught In Some Kind Of Trap. The More We Look Through The Eyes Of Wisdom At Ourselves And One Another, The More We Cultivate A Compassionate Heart.

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People Don't Behave In Angry Ways Unless They Are Feeling Stressed And Conflicted Too.

I Think It's Possible To Have Experiences Of Love Without Attachment, But I Think Part Of Our Conditioning Is To Grasp At Times, Especially When There Are Unmet Needs. It's Part Of Our Nervous System To Hold On To Where We Think Those Needs Will Be Met.

The Way To Develop The Habit Of Savoring Is To Pause When Something Is Beautiful And Good And Catches Our Attention - The Sound Of Rain, The Look Of The Night Sky - The Glow In A Child's Eyes, Or When We Witness Some Kindness. Pause... Then Totally Immerse In The Experience Of Savoring It.

Discovering A Richer Quality Of Being-ness Means To Keep Surrendering And Letting Go Of Resistance.

In Bullfighting There Is An Interesting Parallel To The Pause As A Place Of Refuge And Renewal. It Is Believed That In The Midst Of A Fight, A Bull Can Find His Own Particular Area Of Safety In The Arena. There He Can Reclaim His Strength And Power. This Place And Inner State Are Called His Querencia. As Long As The Bull Remains Enraged And Reactive, The Matador Is In Charge. Yet When He Finds His Querencia, He Gathers His Strength And Loses His Fear. From The Matador's Perspective, At This Point The Bull Is Truly Dangerous, For He Has Tapped Into His Power.

I Think Of Depression As The Mechanism That Pushes Down The Pain Of That Loss. It Tries To Distance Us From The Loss But It Lowers Our Whole Energy Level. I Think That's A Pervasive Way We End Up Responding To Loss Or The Anticipation Of Loss. Natural But Not Necessary.

I Speak A Lot About What I Call "the Trance Of Unworthiness" Which Is Really Epidemic In Our Culture, This Sense Of "i'm Not Enough," Or "something's Wrong With Me." Most Of Us Have Some Level Of It Because Our Culture Has All These Standards (handed Down Through Our Families) Of What It Means To Be Okay.

The Two Wings Of Mindfulness And Kindness Will Begin To Open The Heart To More Connection With Our World.

Radical Acceptance Is The Willingness To Experience Ourselves And Our Lives As It Is.

When We Open To Love, We Become Love.

We Are Uncomfortable Because Everything In Our Life Keeps Changing -- Our Inner Moods, Our Bodies, Our Work, The People We Love, The World We Live In. We Can't Hold On To Anything -- A Beautiful Sunset, A Sweet Taste, An Intimate Moment With A Lover, Our Very Existence As The Body/mind We Call Self -- Because All Things Come And Go. Lacking Any Permanent Satisfaction, We Continuously Need Another Injection Of Fuel, Stimulation, Reassurance From Loved Ones, Medicine, Exercise, And Meditation. We Are Continually Driven To Become Something More, To Experience Something Else.

My Understanding Is That To Love, We Need To Be Able To Totally Surrender To The Living/dying Nature Of This World.

It Is Natural That Our Minds Replay Old Stories, Because That Is Our Own Mechanism For Trying To Work Out Unresolved Problems. Yet Rerunning Those Stories Will Be A Fruitless Looping Until We Learn How To Move From The Story Into Our Body. This Is Why Therapy Alone Often Doesn't Bring Full Healing And Awakening.

With Mindfulness Training We Are Able To Recognize When We Get Lost In Our Mental Dramas, And Bring A Kind And Nonreactive Presence To The Feelings That Accompany Them.

The Emotion Of Fear Often Works Overtime. Even When There Is No Immediate Threat, Our Body May Remain Tight And On Guard, Our Mind Narrowed To Focus On What Might Go Wrong. When This Happens, Fear Is No Longer Functioning To Secure Our Survival. We Are Caught In The Trance Of Fear And Our Moment-to-moment Experience Becomes Bound In Reactivity. We Spend Our Time And Energy Defending Our Life Rather Than Living It Fully.

We, Like The Mother Of The World, Become The Compassionate Presence That Can Hold, With Tenderness, The Rising And Passing Waves Of Suffering.

A Lot Of Times In Spiritual Communities, Detachment Is Considered To Be An Expression Of Being Spiritually Evolved When Often, We Have Want And Fear Around Being In Relationship With Each Other.

If You Let Someone Know You Appreciate Him Or Her, Especially When You're Going To Disagree, It Gets That Person's Defenses Down.

Relaxation Is The Doorway To Both Wisdom And Compassion.

If It Weren't For Desire, The Formless Would Not Have Come Into Form And Engage Creatively.

People Have To Find Their Rhythm. Some People Have Need For More Contact And Time Together And Some People Need More Space.

Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha.

You Have A Unique Body And Mind, With A Particular History And Conditioning. No One Can Offer You A Formula For Navigating All Situations And All States Of Mind. Only By Listening Inwardly In A Fresh And Open Way Will You Discern At Any Given Time What Most Serves Your Healing And Freedom.

There Is Something Wonderfully Bold And Liberating About Saying Yes To Our Entire Imperfect And Messy Life.

Meditation Helps Us To Get Out Of Our Thoughts About The Future And Really Be In The Present Moment.

Longing, Felt Fully, Carries Us To Belonging.

The Next Time You Find Yourself In Some Way Trying Desperately To Land Safely, Your Compassion Might Be What Finally Gives You The Courage You Need To Let Go Of The Controls. In Doing So, You Might Discover That Each Time You Let Go, It Becomes Easier And Easier To Re-enter The Atmosphere Of Your Own Aliveness. Gradually You’ll Come Home To The Flow Of Your Own Living Presence, The Warmth And Space Of Your Awakening Heart.

Underneath The Stress Is Fear, And The Biggest Is Our Own Personal Fear Of Failure.

Fear Of Failure

That Non-attachment Gives Us The Freedom To Be Exactly Who We Are.

This Longing To Express And Celebrate Life Is Innate And Quite Beautiful.

I Think Of Desire As The Essence That Brings Forth The Whole Universe.

Paying Attention Is The Most Basic And Profound Expression Of Love.

Self-judgment Continues To Arise - It's A Strong Habit - But The Fact That I Made A Conscious Commitment To Recognize It Has Helped Me Stop Feeding The Story Of Being Unworthy.

No Matter What Feeling Comes Up - Numbness, Irritability, Shame - If I Let It Arise And Play Itself Through, I Naturally Open Into Wakefulness And Care.

In Any Moment, No Matter How Lost We Feel, We Can Take Refuge In Presence And Love. We Need Only Pause, Breathe, And Open To The Experience Of Aliveness Within Us. In That Wakeful Openness, We Come Home To The Peace And Freedom Of Our Natural Awareness.

When We're Awake In Our Bodies And Sense, The World Comes Alive. Wisdom, Creativity, And Love Are Discovered As We Relax And Awaken Through Our Bodies.

When I Watch That Attachment Happening, I See The Beliefs That I Have Around It. If Somebody's Not Paying Attention To Me In A Certain Way, In My Mind, It Means They Don't Love Me Or They Don't Respect Me. Bringing Awareness To The Beliefs That Are Underneath The Attachment And Bringing Awareness To The Way My Body And Heart Are Tightening, Helps Me Wake Up And Re-inhabit A Larger Space Of Being. Holding On And Pushing Away Might Be Going On But I'm Freer To Respond In A Healthy Way.

Clearly Recognizing What Is Happening Inside Us, And Regarding What We See With An Open, Kind And Loving Heart, Is What I Call Radical Acceptance. If We Are Holding Back From Any Part Of Our Experience, If Our Heart Shuts Out Any Part Of Who We Are And What We Feel, We Are Fueling The Fears And Feelings Of Separation That Sustain The Trance Of Unworthiness. Radical Acceptance Directly Dismantles The Very Foundations Of This Trance.

Feeling Compassion For Ourselves In No Way Releases Us From Responsibility For Our Actions. Rather, It Releases Us From The Self-hatred That Prevents Us From Responding To Our Life With Clarity And Balance.

Pain Is Not Wrong. Reacting To Pain As Wrong Initiates The Trance Of Unworthiness. The Moment We Believe Something Is Wrong, Our World Shrinks And We Lose Ourselves In The Effort To Combat The Pain.

Our Greatest Longing Is To Be Intimate.

When I'm Attached, I Find That I Don't See The Other Person As Clearly Because I'm More Caught Up In What I'm Wanting.

There Are Stories We Take On From Our Culture, And There Are Stories Based On Our Own Personal History. Some Of Those Stories Lock Us In Limiting Beliefs And Lead To Suffering, And There Are Others That Can Move Us Toward Freedom.

Even Going Through The Motions Is A Way Of Establishing A New Relationship With Our Inner Life That Is Caring And Tender, Versus One That Is Judging, Distancing Or Ignoring. This Is The Beginning Of Being Capable Of Intimacy With Others.

New Relationship

If I Can Forgive The Attachment In Myself And Open To The Vulnerability That's Underneath It, Then Rather Than Fixating On Another Person To Satisfy My Need, I'm Actually Going Right To Where The Needs Come From And Able To Bring A Real Healing.

Emotions Are The Interaction Of Thoughts And Of Sensations In The Body.

Mindfulness Is A Pause - The Space Between Stimulus And Response: That's Where Choice Lies.

Observing Desire Without Acting On It Enlarges Our Freedom To Choose How We Live.

Radical Acceptance

We Wait For Things To Be Different In Order To Feel Okay With Life. As Long As We Keep Attaching Our Happiness To The External Events Of Our Lives, Which Are Ever Changing, We’ll Always Be Left Waiting For It.

By Taking The Time To Explore Charged Memories In Therapy We Might Uncover Feelings That Have Been Buried For Decades.

With An Undefended Heart, We Can Fall In Love With Life Over And Over Every Day. We Can Become Children Of Wonder, Grateful To Be Walking On Earth, Grateful To Belong With Each Other And To All Of Creation. We Can Find Our True Refuge In Every Moment, In Every Breath.

Falling In Love

Our Attitude In The Face Of Life's Challenges Determines Our Suffering Or Our Freedom.

The Buddha Never Intended To Make Desire Itself The Problem. When He Said Craving Causes Suffering, He Was Referring Not To Our Natural Inclination As Living Beings To Have Wants And Needs, But To Our Habit Of Clinging To Experience That Must, By Nature, Pass Away.

When We Relax About Imperfection, We No Longer Lose Our Life Moments In The Pursuit Of Being Different And In The Fear Of What Is Wrong.

Being Different

If I'm Judging The Attachment, Myself, Or Another Person, Then I Create Separation.

Along With Judging Myself Harshly, I'd Also Always Seen The Truth Of Goodness In Me.

But This Revolutionary Act Of Treating Ourselves Tenderly Can Begin To Undo The Aversive Messages Of A Lifetime.

Somewhere In My Early Twenties I Realized I Was Pretty Constantly Monitoring Myself, Judging How I Was Always Falling Short, Whether It Was About Not Being A Good Enough Daughter Or Friend, Or My Appearance, Or Whatever. I Ended Up Becoming Involved With A Spiritual Path In The Yogic Tradition, Living In An Ashram, Doing A Very Rigorous Spiritual Practice.

As Long As We Are Alive, We Feel Fear. It Is An Intrinsic Part Of Our Makeup, As Natural As A Bitter Cold Winter Day Or The Winds That Rip Branches Off Trees. If We Resist It Or Push It Aside, We Miss A Powerful Opportunity For Awakening.

The Spiritual Path Is Not A Solo Endeavor. In Fact, The Very Notion Of A Self Who Is Trying To Free Her/ Himself Is A Delusion. We Are In It Together And The Company Of Spiritual Friends Helps Us Realize Our Interconnectedness.

Unless We're Completely Awake, Have A Degree Of That. We Tense Against Love And Hold On In A Way That Doesn't Let It Flow. When That's Really Strong, The Key Piece To Freeing Our Hearts Is Self-compassion.

On This Sacred Path Of Radical Acceptance, Rather Than Striving For Perfection, We Discover How To Love Ourselves Into Wholeness.

Meditation Can Change The Flavor Of The Season.

The Boundary To What We Can Accept Is The Boundary To Our Freedom.

Just Remember That Everyone Is Struggling; Everyone Is Living With Fear And Uncertainty And It Doesn't Matter What Their Politics Are.

When You Are In Touch With Your Body And Heart, It Allows You To Then Be In The World And Act With Intention And Clarity And Kindness.

The Muscles Used To Make A Smile Actually Send A Biochemical Message To Our Nervous System That It Is Safe To Relax The Flight Of Freeze Response.

Meditation Is Evolution's Strategy To Bring Out Our Full Potential.

Fear Of Being A Flawed Person Lay At The Root Of My Trance, And I Had Sacrificed Many Moments Over The Years In Trying To Prove My Worth. Like The Tiger Mohini, I Inhabited A Self-made Prison That Stopped Me From Living Fully.

Stopping The Endless Pursuit Of Getting Somewhere Else Is The Perhaps Most Beautiful Offering We Can Make To Our Spirit.

It May Sound Lovey-dovey, But There's Research Showing The Positive Effect Of Meditation On Parts Of The Brain That Control Emotion.

Suffering Is Our Call To Attention, Our Call To Investigate The Truth Of Our Beliefs.

Imagine You Are Walking In The Woods And You See A Small Dog Sitting By A Tree. As You Approach It, It Suddenly Lunges At You, Teeth Bared. You Are Frightened And Angry. But Then You Notice That One Of Its Legs Is Caught In A Trap. Immediately Your Mood Shifts From Anger To Concern: You See That The Dog's Aggression Is Coming From A Place Of Vulnerability And Pain. This Applies To All Of Us. When We Behave In Hurtful Ways, It Is Because We Are Caught In Some Kind Of Trap. The More We Look Through The Eyes Of Wisdom At Ourselves And One Another, The More We Cultivate A Compassionate Heart.

The Fear Side Can Have Us Pull Away And Protect Us, But It's Really A Withdrawal, A Disassociation, A Cutting Off. Rather Than The Word Detachment, I Usually Use The Word Non-attachment. That Can Be Wholesome When We Care And Are Completely Engaged With Each Other But Are Not Attached To Things Being A Certain Way.

I Would Say Both Western Psychology And Eastern Paths Would Recognize That We Get Caught Up In Feeling Like A Separate Self And An Unworthy Self.

It Is Through Realizing Loving Presence As Our Very Essence, Through Being That Presence, That We Discover True Freedom.

If Our Hearts Are Ready For Anything, We Are Touched By The Beauty And Poetry And Mystery That Fill Our World.

As I Noticed Feelings And Thoughts Appear And Disappear, It Became Increasingly Clear That They Were Just Coming And Going On Their Own. . . . There Was No Sense Of A Self Owning Them.

The Trance Of Unworthiness Keeps The Sweetness Of Belonging Out Of Reach. The Path To "the Sweetness Of Belonging," Is Acceptance - Acceptance Of Ourselves And Acceptance Of Others Without Judgment.

Most Of Us Grew Up With A Very Damaging Story That Something Is Wrong With Us. Gradually - Or As In My Case, Suddenly - We Become Resolved Not To Believe This Anymore. It Takes A Dedicated Practice To Follow Up On That Resolution, Because The Conditioning Is Very Strong To Keep Generating Self-demeaning Stories.

Take Moments To Savor What Is Beautiful And Good.

Awakening Self-compassion Is Often The Greatest Challenge People Face On The Spiritual Path.

If We're Not Open To Losing, We're Not Open To Loving.

When Someone Says To Us, As Thich Nhat Hanh Suggests, "darling, I Care About Your Suffering," A Deep Healing Begins.

My Prayer Became 'may I Find Peace... May I Love This Life No Matter What.' I Was Seeking An Inner Refuge, An Experience Of Presence And Wholeness That Could Carry Me Through Whatever Losses Might Come.

Compassion Can Be Described As Letting Ourselves Be Touched By The Vulnerability And Suffering That Is Within Ourselves And All Beings. The Full Flowering Of Compassion Also Includes Action: Not Only Do We Attune To The Presence Of Suffering, We Respond To It.

This Is For Anyone Reading This Who Wants To Explore It. Recognize The Thought, "afraid Of Loving," Then Gently Put Your Hand On Your Heart To Send A Message Of Kindness.

To Me, Bringing Mindfulness-bas Ed Practices To Students, Teachers And Parents Is Some Of The Most Important Work We Can Be Doing. If We Can Help The Next Generation Become More Self-aware, Empathetic And Emotionally Resilient, They Will Bring Their Wisdom To Healing The Earth And Creating A More Peaceful World.

Become A Witness To Your Thoughts.

The Great Gift Of A Spiritual Path Is Coming To Trust That You Can Find A Way To True Refuge. You Realize That You Can Start Right Where You Are, In The Midst Of Your Life, And Find Peace In Any Circumstance. Even At Those Moments When The Ground Shakes Terribly Beneath You—when There’s A Loss That Will Alter Your Life Forever—you Can Still Trust That You Will Find Your Way Home. This Is Possible Because You’ve Touched The Timeless Love And Awareness That Are Intrinsic To Who You Are.

In The Process Of Deeply Accepting Our Own Inner Experience, Instead Of Being Identified With A Story Of A Limited Self, We Realize The Compassion And Wakefulness That Is Our Essence.

I Might Find That I Have A Habit Of Being Jealous And Comparing Myself With Other People And Riveting My Attention On How Much Somebody Else Is Accomplishing Or Doing, Or How Much Better They Are At Such And Such. First, I Might Recognize The Story - The Mental Images And Internal Dialogue - And Say, "okay, Comparing Mind." Then, Rather Than Staying Caught In The Content, I'll Bring My Attention Into My Body And Open To The Immediate Feelings That Are There.

With The First Out Breath, You Are Releasing Worries, Plans, Mental Tensions. With The Second Out Breath, You Are Releasing Physical Tightness And Tension. With The Third Out Breath, You Are Releasing Difficult Emotions.

Where Desire Ends Up Causing Suffering Is When It Fixates.

In A Basic Way, Acceptance Is Seeing Clearly What's Happening And Holding It With Kindness. This Is A Radical Antidote To The Suffering Of Judging Mind.

I Mentioned Earlier The Two Wings Of Awareness. The First Step Is Recognizing The Fear Of Getting Close To Others - This Honest Witnessing Of Where It Is In The Body, Where It Is In Your Beliefs.the Other Wing Regards What's Seen With Kindness And Compassion.

Perhaps The Biggest Tragedy Of Our Lives Is That Freedom Is Possible, Yet We Can Pass Our Years Trapped In The Same Old Patterns.

Offer Some Gesture Of Kindness To Yourself. Sometimes It's Just A Message, To Say: "it's Okay. You're Going To Be Okay. We've Been Through This Before." The Intention Is Reassurance, That You Are Not Alone And You Can Do This. It Is The Most Powerful Way To Come Out Of What I Call The "trance Of Unworthiness."

We Are Waiting For The Next Moment To Contain What This Moment Does Not.

Each Time You Meet An Old Emotional Pattern With Presence, Your Awakening To Truth Can Deepen. There’s Less Identification With The Self In The Story And More Ability To Rest In The Awareness That Is Witnessing What’s Happening. You Become More Able To Abide In Compassion, To Remember And Trust Your True Home. Rather Than Cycling Repetitively Through Old Conditioning, You Are Actually Spiraling Toward Freedom.

By Regarding Ourselves With Kindness, We Begin To Dissolve The Identity Of An Isolated, Deficient Self. This Creates The Grounds For Including Others In An Unconditionally Loving Heart.

Imperfection Is Not Our Personal Problem - It Is A Natural Part Of Existing.

Telling Each Other The Truth And Being Who We Are, And Having Space For The Other Person's Vulnerability In Being Who They Are, Allows Us To Move In A Kind Of Dance Together That's Very Fluid And Graceful.

The Most Powerful Healing Arises From The Simple Intention To Love The Life Within You, Unconditionally, With As Much Tenderness And Presence As Possible.

There Are Some Things We Can't Choose, But In Being Present We Can Choose How We Want To Relate To Them

Making A U-turn From Our Thoughts To Our Feelings Re-connects Us To Our Own Inner Experience And Creates The Grounds For Connecting With Others In A More Authentic Way. It's A Movement From Head To Heart.

I Registered The Dukkha Of Self-aversion With Such Clarity That I Knew There Was No Freedom Unless I Could Love This Life Without Holding Back. This Didn't Mean I Was Going To Ignore My Flaws And Stop Seeking To Improve What I Could. But In The Deepest Way, I Was Not Going To Fixate On The Conclusion That Something Was Wrong With Me.

When Caught In Conflict And Blame - Make A U-turn And Shift Your Attention From Blaming Thoughts To What's Going On Emotionally In Your Body.

If Our Hearts Are Ready For Anything, We Can Open To Our Inevitable Losses, And To The Depths Of Our Sorrow. We Can Grieve Our Lost Loves, Our Lost Youth, Our Lost Health, Our Lost Capacities. This Is Part Of Our Humanness, Part Of The Expression Of Our Love For Life.

The Main Thing Going On Around Intimacy Is That We've Developed A Lot Of Strategies So We'll Be A Desirable Package.

Just Come Into Stillness. Have Your Intention Be To Relax With The Breath. That Will Begin To Set In Motion A Habit That Will Start To Train The Mind.

Happiness Lies Not In Finding What Is Missing, But In Finding What Is Present.

Presence Is Not Some Exotic State That We Need To Search For Or Manufacture. In The Simplest Terms, It Is The Felt Sense Of Wakefulness, Openness, And Tenderness That Arises When We Are Fully Here And Now With Our Experience.

I Want To Accept Myself Completely, Just As I Am.

There's Healthy Attachment, Like With A Mother And Child. It's Biologically Part Of Our Survival.

My First Book, 'radical Acceptance', Grew Out Of The Suffering Of Feeling Personally Deficient And Unworthy. Because Most Of Us Are So Quick To Turn Against Ourselves, The Teachings And Practices Of Radical Acceptance Continue As A Strong Current In 'true Refuge': Nurturing A Forgiving, Understanding Heart Is A Basic Step On The Path.

The Mistake We Make Is That When We're Feeling Another Person Is Not Treating Us In The Way That Makes Us Feel Secure And Loved, We Fixate Our Attention On That Person And What's Wrong With Them. We Also Fixate On What's Wrong With Us. Instead, We Can Bring Forward Two Wings Of Awareness: The Wing Of Mindfulness (noticing What's Going On Inside Us) And The Wing Of Kindness (compassion To What's Going On Inside Us).

I Think The Reason Buddhism And Western Psychology Are So Compatible Is That Western Psychology Helps To Identify The Stories And The Patterns In Our Personal Lives, But What Buddhist Awareness Training Does Is It Actually Allows The Person To Develop Skills To Stay In What's Going On.

We Can Find True Refuge Within Our Own Hearts And Minds-right Here, Right Now, In The Midst Of Our Moment-to-momen T Lives. We Find True Refuge Whenever We Recognize The Silent Space Of Awareness Behind All Our Busy Doing And Striving. We Find Refuge Whenever Our Hearts Open With Tenderness And Love. We Find Refuge Whenever We Connect With The Innate Clarity And Intelligence Of Our True Nature.

We're So Used To Presenting Ourselves And Getting Approval According To Our Achievements That It's Difficult To Be Authentic And Trust That We'll Be Accepted Just As We Are.

Whatever You Encounter, May That Be Part Of The Path.

It's The Beginning Of Opening To Love. Even If There's Not Much Feeling Of Compassion Toward Oneself, Just Say, "it's Okay, Sweetheart," Or "i'm Sorry And I Love You."

What Would It Be Like If, Right In The Midst Of This Busyness, We Were To Consciously Take Our Hands Off The Controls? What If We Were To Intentionally Stop Our Mental Computations And Our Rushing Around And, For A Minute Or Two, Simply Pause And Notice Our Inner Experience?

Through The Sacred Art Of Pausing, We Develop The Capacity To Stop Hiding, To Stop Running Away From Our Experience. We Begin To Trust In Our Natural Intelligence, In Our Naturally Wise Heart, In Our Capacity To Open To Whatever Arises.

We Can Find True Refuge Within Our Own Hearts And Minds-right Here, Right Now, In The Midst Of Our Moment-to-momen T Lives.

The Intimacy That Arises In Listening And Speaking Truth Is Only Possible If We Can Open To The Vulnerability Of Our Own Hearts. Breathing In, Contacting The Life That Is Right Here, Is Our First Step. Once We Have Held Ourselves With Kindness, We Can Touch Others In A Vital And Healing Way.

Stories Can Be A Jumping-off Point To Access The Emotions And The Sensations In The Body.

Managing Life From Our Mental Control Towers, We Have Separated Ourselves From Our Bodies And Hearts.

Buddhist Practices Offer A Way Of Saying, 'hey, Come Back Over Here, Reconnect.' The Only Way That You'll Actually Wake Up And Have Some Freedom Is If You Have The Capacity And Courage To Stay With The Vulnerability And The Discomfort.

Feelings And Stories Of Unworthiness And Shame Are Perhaps The Most Binding Element In The Trance Of Fear. When We Believe Something Is Wrong With Us, We Are Convinced We Are In Danger. Our Shame Fuels Ongoing Fear, And Our Fear Fuels More Shame. The Very Fact That We Feel Fear Seems To Prove That We Are Broken Or Incapable. When We Are Trapped In Trance, Being Fearful And Bad Seem To Define Who We Are. The Anxiety In Our Body, The Stories, The Ways We Make Excuses, Withdraw Or Lash Out—these Become To Us The Self That Is Most Real.

I'd Known That I Had The Capacity To Love, That I Enjoyed Seeing Other People Be Happy, That I Had A Real Awe And Wonder About The Beauty Of This World.

Capacity To Love

Even A Few Moments Of Offering Lovingkindness Can Reconnect You With The Purity Of Your Loving Heart.

True Refuge Is That Which Allows Us To Be At Home, At Peace, To Discover True Happiness. The Only Thing That Can Give Us True Refuge Is The Awareness And Love That Is Intrinsic To Who We Are. Ultimately, Its Our Own True Nature.

What Would It Be Like If I Could Accept Life--accept This Moment--exactly As It Is?

Radical Acceptance

You Can Think Of Spiritual Practice As A Kind Of Spiritual Re-parenting ... You're Offering Yourself The Two Qualities That Make Up Good Parenting: Understanding - Seeing Yourself For Who You Truly Are - And Relating To What You See With Unconditional Love.

Unconditional Love

Stories About Ourselves And About The World Continually Arise In Our Minds And Shape Our Beliefs About Reality.

I Knew I Could Hold Myself With That Absolute Love And Compassion.

Love And Compassion

Nothing Is Wrong - Whatever Is Happening Is Just "real Life."

Radical Acceptance

By Running From What We Fear, We Feed The Inner Darkness

Perhaps The Biggest Tragedy Of Our Lives Is That Freedom Is Possible, Yet We Can Pass Our Years Trapped In The Same Old Patterns...we May Want To Love Other People Without Holding Back, To Feel Authentic, To Breathe In The Beauty Around Us, To Dance And Sing. Yet Each Day We Listen To Inner Voices That Keep Our Life Small.

As We Free Ourselves From The Suffering Of 'something Is Wrong With Me, 'we Trust And Express The Fullness Of Who We Are.'

If [kids] Get Into Loving Relationships, They're Afraid They'll Be Found Wanting, Won't Have The Looks Or Body Shape Our Culture Deems Worthy. Many Of Us Feel We're Falling Short And If We Start Feeling Close To Another Person, That We'll Be Found Out And Rejected.

If Attachment Then Carries Forward In A Way That's Not Healthy, We Need To Let It Be There Without Making It Wrong And Bring As Compassionate And Honest Attention To It As Possible. Honor That This Is Part Of Being Human, But It's Important To Know When It's Getting In The Way.

I Recently Read In The Book My Stroke Of Insight By Brain Scientist Jill Bolte Taylor That The Natural Life Span Of An Emotion—the Average Time It Takes For It To Move Through The Nervous System And Body—is Only A Minute And A Half. After That We Need Thoughts To Keep The Emotion Rolling. So If We Wonder Why We Lock Into Painful Emotional States Like Anxiety, Depression, Or Rage, We Need Look No Further Than Our Own Endless Stream Of Inner Dialogue.

In The Collective Psyche It Is Being Understood... That We Can Cultivate Wisdom And Compassion.

Our Kids Go To School And They Come Out Feeling Not Intelligent, Not Desirable, Not Attractive Or Appealing To Others.

We Want To Be In Open, Loving Communion With Each Other And Our Greatest Fear Is Intimacy. That It Won't Work And We'll Be Rejected.

Sometimes The Easiest Way To Appreciate Ourselves Is By Looking Through The Eyes Of Someone Who Loves Us.

Learning To Pause Is The First Step In The Practice Of Radical Acceptance. A Pause Is A Suspension Of Activity, A Time Of Temporary Disengagement When We Are No Longer Moving Toward Any Goal ... The Pause Can Occur In The Midst Of Almost Any Activity And Can Last For An Instant, For Hours Or For Seasons Of Our Life ... You Might Try It Now: Stop Reading And Sit There, Doing 'no Thing,' And Simply Notice What You Are Experiencing.

When We Put Down Ideas Of What Life Should Be Like, We Are Free To Wholeheartedly Say Yes To Our Life As It Is.

Most Of Us Need To Be Reminded That We Are Good, That We Are Lovable, That We Belong. If We Knew Just How Powerfully Our Thoughts, Words, And Actions Affected The Hearts Of Those Around Us, We'd Reach Out And Join Hands Again And Again. Our Relationships Have The Potential To Be A Sacred Refuge, A Place Of Healing And Awakening. With Each Person We Meet, We Can Learn To Look Behind The Mask And See The One Who Longs To Love And Be Loved.

The Renowned Seventh-century Zen Master Seng-tsan Taught That True Freedom Is Being "without Anxiety About Imperfection.

Extend An Act Of Kindness Each Day. No One Has To Know. It Can Be A Smile, Reassuring Words, A Small Favor - Without Expecting Something In Return.

Expecting Something In Return

I Sometimes Call This Our "spacesuit Self" Because We Come Into An Environment That Is Difficult And Challenging, Where We're Told To Be Different. We're Told To Jump Over Hoops To Be Loved And Appreciated, So We Have To Develop Spacesuit Strategies To Get Approval And Create Ways To Avoid Being Judged.

When Desire For A Certain Person's Attention Becomes An "i Have To Have" Kind Of Grasping, Then Identity Gets Organized Around Needing That And It Becomes Very Solid And Sticky. That Causes Suffering Because We're Not Inhabiting The Fullness Of Who We Are, We're Fixated And Contracted On Life Being A Certain Way.

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