The psyche will send us persistent messages to let us know what our real work is, and often these messages come through surprising events that get our attention and help us realize that our ego’s perceived agenda is not aligned with the psyche of our own integrity.
Angeles Arrien
Nothing in this human realm is meant to work. So once you can deeply appreciate that- the mind of compassion grows if you understand that everybody’s up against it. I remember reading some works of Simone Veil, a French woman who lived in France during the war and she said there’s only one question worth asking anybody and that question is, “What are you going through?”
Leonard Cohen
even
a small purple artichoke
boiled
in its own bittered
and darkening
waters
grows tender,
grows tender and sweet
patience, I think,
my species
keep testing the spiny leaves
the spiny heart
Jane Hirshfield, My Species
The propensity to feel sorry for ourselves, the propensity to be jealous, the propensity to get angry — our habitual, all-too-familiar emotional responses are like seeds that we just keep watering and nurturing. But every time we pause and stay present with the underlying energy, we stop reinforcing these propensities and begin to open ourselves to refreshingly new possibilities.
As you respond differently to an old habit, you may start to notice changes. In the past when you got angry, it might have taken you three days to cool down, but if you keep interrupting the angry thoughts, you may get to the point at which it takes only a day to drop the anger. Eventually, only hours or even one and a half minutes. You’re starting to be liberated from suffering
Pema Chodron, Free yourself from the story of You
Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, We will have to learn to live with it – just as we have learned to live with storms.
Paulo Coelho.
When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
Hafiz
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