Realizing that your life is about learning will reduce
self-judgment and contribute to your happiness.
The greatest avoidance strategy is I don’t
have time.
Discipline is not supported by ambition but by
consistency.
To improve your communication today, translate whatever anyone says
to you as a request for attention and respect.
Emotions arise when beliefs are challenged.
Teach for yourself; practice for your students.
Today notice when you are agitated, or angry, or upset. Then ask
yourself: what belief of mine has just been challenged?
Being
curious is a high state of being.
Thoughts
are just neurotransmitters locking into receptor sites; they are not truth.
Wonder
perfectly combines curiosity, gratitude, and presence.
Yoga is
not about touching your toes; it is about what you learn on the way down.
If you
want to be loving, first accept your ability to hate.
Tension
is your body’s response to the past.
Simplicity
carried to extreme is elegance.
The mind
can’t be controlled; it can be observed.
Today
notice how you cling to control as a strategy to feel safe.
Letting
go means realizing you weren’t in charge anyway.
Ask
yourself which pain you want – the pain of moving through your challenge, or
the pain of avoiding it.
The
nature of mind is to be agitated.
When you
try to protect people by not telling them the truth, you multiply their
suffering.
Meditation…
is the art of just being with your mental agitation, without the need to
control or eliminate it. This process
creates a disidentification with your thoughts that is the basis of all true
freedom.
Our
beliefs create a screen between what is and how we want things to be.
Fear is
never about the present moment.
Taking
care of others’ needs cannot be done well and willingly without taking care of
yourself.
Anger
takes many forms. Count how many times
today you feel frustrated, or irritated, or impatient. These are the number of times you have
disconnected from yourself.
Impatience
is the surface of anger.
The more
difficult a thing is, the more it requires softness.
If you
feel agitated, sad, or afraid today, ask yourself, What am I resisting?
We feel insecure
when we forget our connection to ourselves.
Then we feel afraid and try to control everything around us.
Hold the
difficult as sacred.
Three
times today, stop and ask yourself, what is true and alive for me right now?
Then live from that understanding.
True
freedom is the ability to be radically present to what arises, regardless of
what it is.
Righteous
anger is redundant. I can never be angry when I accept that I am wrong. Today, when you feel irritated or angry,
pause and identify the thought that fuels your belief in your rightness.
Shifting
and giving in are not the same things.
Acceptance
and acknowledgment are not the same.
Beliefs
are thoughts that get repeated enough to take on a kind of internal structure.
When we
are confused, we feel agitated. This
agitation has more to do with what we tell ourselves about being confused
rather than actually being confused.
Whatever
we experienced as a child, we consider normal.
We are
either in the flow with the speed of what is happening or we are
impatient. Being patient is an attempt
to cover our own impatience.
Reality
is just one point of view.
Listening
is being willing to be changed by what we hear.
You are
raising your grandchildren by how you raise your children.
My words
reflect my thoughts; my thoughts reflect my beliefs; and my beliefs run my
life.
Simple
and easy are not the same thing.
Worrying
is a way to avoid what is so by thinking about what could be.
What my
senses tell me is only part of the truth.
