“We can find true refuge within our own hearts and minds-right here, right now, in the midst of our moment-to-moment lives.”

Stopping the endless pursuit of getting somewhere else is the perhaps most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.

Where desire ends up causing suffering is when it fixates.

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.

Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.

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.

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.

Whatever you encounter, may that be part of the path.

People don’t behave in angry ways unless they are feeling stressed and conflicted too.

The most powerful healing arises from the simple intention to love the life within you, unconditionally, with as much tenderness and presence as possible.

Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are touched by the beauty and poetry and mystery that fill our world.

There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.

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.

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.

But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.

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.

Let the moon teach you the art of scars. How beautiful you can shine, even with craters in your heart.

She plucked a feather from her magnificent wings and dipped it in ink. She wrote poems bled from her scars guided straight from the depths of her heart.

The heart is foolish perhaps that’s why it falls in love, even after its hurt.

Don’t be afraid of the heat, it’s just the fire blazing inside my heart. I can warm up the room and thaw away at the bitter and cold parts of you.

Often all we can do is breathe, even that can be hard sometimes.

Remember me as a wanderer wild, with bright blue eyes and a heart of golden fire.

He stuck in his ways, but hate the taste of his own medicine.

He played with my heart strings and turned them into a song I can’t get out of my head.