All of our emotions are our babies.
Treat them tenderly, care for them. Be with them.
Understanding and compassion will ultimately transform them.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Walking Meditation
Category: Be fully present
Accepting yourself as you are….
Both our upbringing and our culture provide the immediate breeding ground for this contemporary epidemic of feeling deficient and unworthy. Many of us have grown up with parents who gave us messages about where we fell short and how we should be different from the way we are. We were told to be special, to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to work harder, to win, to succeed, to make a difference, and not to be too demanding, shy or loud. An indirect but insidious message for many has been “Don’t be needy.” Because our culture so values independence, self-reliance and strength, even the word “needy” evokes shame. To be considered as needy is utterly demeaning, contemptible. And yet, we all have needs – physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual. So the basic message is, “Your natural way of being is not okay. To be acceptable you must be different from the way you are.”
Tara Brach
Running away from parts of ourselves
If there are whole parts of yourself that you are always running from, that you even feel justified in running from, then you’re going to run from anything that brings you into contact with your feelings of insecurity. Have you noticed how often these parts of ourselves get touched? The closer you get to a situation or a person, the more these feelings arise. Often when you’re in a relationship it starts off great, but when it gets intimate and begins to bring out your neurosis, you just want to get out of there.
So I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. You can cruise through life not letting anything touch you, but if you really want to live fully, if you want to enter into life, enter into genuine relationships with other people, with animals, with the world situation, you’re definitely going to have the experience of feeling provoked, of getting hooked. You’re not just going to feel bliss. The message is that when those feelings emerge, this is not a failure. This is the chance to cultivate unconditional friendliness toward your perfect and imperfect self.
Pema Chodron
Love
Love is not a matter of getting what you want.
Quite the contrary.
The insistence on always having what you want,
on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled,
makes love impossible.
Thomas Merton
Really seeing the person today
The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I’d say that compassion begins with attention.
Daniel Goleman
Bring your mind to the present moment
I think the most important thing is to consciously choose to bring your mind to the present moment. How do you do that? You decide that you’re going to see what your eyes are looking at; you bring your consciousness to the present moment. When you are going up the stairs, you look at the steps, you look at the handrail. Most of us unconsciously climb the steps, never think about the steps, can’t even say what the color of the carpet is, if there is a carpet, because we’re somewhere else.
Pay attention to the present moment. Bring your mind, bring your ears to the present moment, start savoring the awareness of the information you perceive in the present moment, and let that grow. And it’s like with any circuitry: the more you concentrate on it and experience it, the more it will develop itself.
Jill Boite Taylor
