
Fighting

My analyst once said to me, “You must make your fears your agenda.” When we do take on that agenda, for all the anxiety engendered, we feel better because we know we are living in ‘bonne foi’ [good faith] with ourselves. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the perception that some things are more important to us than what we fear
James Hollis, Swamplands of the Soul
It is not the thoughts that create problems for us.
It is our harboring them.
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid.
Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
You will never be able to experience everything.
So please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.
Camus
Perhaps the real point of life is simply to wear us down until we have no choice but to start abandoning our defenses. We learn that the way things are is simply the way they are meant to be right now, and then, suddenly, at long last, we catch a glimpse of the abundance in the moment.
Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey, An Apprenticeship in Contentment