Owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.
Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love, belonging, and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable.
Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, we feel that we deserve resolution.
However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution.
We deserve something better than resolution: we deserve our birthright, which is prajna,
an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.
Pema Chödrön, Comfortable with Uncertainty
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To get somewhere new, we must change the direction we are going right now
The first invitation is just to stop entirely the conversation that you’ve been having until now
and meet what is arriving without naming or planning.
Just to hear and feel the annunciation of a new energy, a new life.
David Whyte
If life can be sinned against at all,
it is not so much by despairing of it
as by pinning one’s hopes on another life
and sidestepping the unforgiving grandeur of this one
[S’il y a un péché contre la vie, ce n’est peut-être pas tant d’en désespérer que d’espérer une autre vie et de se dérober à l’implacable grandeur de celle-ci.]
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
Two Taoist concepts – wu wei “effortless action.” and xin zhai “not feeding the heart-mind.” – to guide us in this New Year
Flow with whatever may happen,
and let your mind be at ease.
Zhuang Zhou, 4th Century BCE, Zhuangzi, chapter 7
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it?
A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
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