“Our attitude in the face of life’s challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.”

Mindfulness is a pause – the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.

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.

Nothing is wrong – whatever is happening is just “real life.”

Sometimes the easiest way to appreciate ourselves is by looking through the eyes of someone who loves us.

Awakening self-compassion is often the greatest challenge people face on the spiritual path.

There are some things we can’t choose, but in being present we can choose how we want to relate to them.

Paying attention is the most basic and profound expression of love.

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.

Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

I’m happy to be alive, I’m happy to be who I am.

The greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less.

So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.

Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.

Haters can keep on hating.

I want to be important. By being different. And these girls are all the same.