Sometimes The Easiest Way To Appreciate Ourselves

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.