“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.”

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.

Relaxation is the doorway to both wisdom and compassion.

The two wings of mindfulness and kindness will begin to open the heart to more connection with our world.

When we put down ideas of what life should be like, we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to our life as it is.

As we free ourselves from the suffering of ‘something is wrong with me, ‘we trust and express the fullness of who we are.’

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.

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.

The greatest romance is with the Infinite. You have no idea how beautiful life can be. When you suddenly find God everywhere, when He comes and talks to you and guides you, the romance of divine love has begun.

In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.

Hope begins in the dark.

The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.

Before you begin your day: Take a moment of silence and meditation, and give yourself permission to have all that you desire.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment.

Life begins now — right now — not tomorrow or the next day or the next. Every minute of every hour of every day, life begins anew. That means everything can change in an instant. It also means you can have a new beginning whenever you want.