Once we are honest about our feelings, we can invite ourselves to consider alternative modes of viewing our pain and can see that releasing our grip on anger and resentment can actually be an act of self-compassion.
For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance.
Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way – with awareness, balance, and love.
The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.
If we truly loved ourselves, we’d never harm another. That is a truly revolutionary, celebratory mode of self-care.
Just as a prism refracts light differently when you change its angle, each experience of love illuminates love in new ways, drawing from an infinite palette of patterns and hues.
When we don’t tell those we love about what’s really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories.
If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation.
When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences – good and bad alike – are opportunities to learn and grow.
Even when we do our very best to treat those close to us with utmost respect and understanding, conflict happens. That’s life. That’s human nature.
Can you revise your perceptions to see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering, instead of good and bad? To see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering is Buddha-mind, and will lead us away from righteousness and anger. Get in touch with your own Buddha-mind, and you will uncover a healing force of compassion.
Letting go is an inside job, something only we can do for ourselves.
If we have nothing material to give, we can offer our attention, our energy, our appreciation. The world needs us. It doesn’t deplete us to give.
The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.
It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people and helps us to turn toward them with compassion.
With a clear intention and a willing spirit, sooner or later we experience the joy and freedom that arises when we recognize our common humanity with others and see that real love excludes no one.
Kindness is really at the core of what it means to be and feel alive.
Only when we start to distinguish reality from fantasy that we can humbly, with eyes wide open, forge loving and sustainable connections with others.
You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that.