Growth is less about becoming someone new and more about becoming who we truly are.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness;
and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
Robert Browning, Paracelsus
People who practice mindfulness find that they dont have to trust the narrative self,
that it has lost its hold over them as the primary reference of truth and reality.
It’s such a sweet thing.
To go from having been habitually convinced by this narrative self, to no longer being convinced by it, is a huge shift.
Henry Shukman
You are not a unified self. There’s a parliament inside you, with different factions competing for control.
The you of five years ago and the you of five minutes ago are not the same.
David Eagleman, American neuroscientist and author,
Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
The first day of Lent and of Ramadan
Our culture accelerates. Deadlines, notifications, reputational anxiety, comparisons – all creating a sense of tightness. What would it mean to live one day this week unhurried?
There is a way to live that is spacious and unhurried,
a way that allows the heart to breathe
Wayne Muller, How, Then, Shall We Live?
We just have to learn to love our lives so deeply
that we welcome whatever comes.
John Tarrant, Poison and Joy
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved.
You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.
And the way to realize it is stillness.
Osho, Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
Mindfulbalance 