Inner Peace Begins Quotes

It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.

Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.

Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It's absolutely true that, "Wherever you go, there you are.

The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

Some people can’t be in your life because they don’t have the power to help you improve it. That doesn’t mean you don’t wish them well, it just means that you are on Chapter ten of your life, when they are on Chapter five. Maybe, it is just enough to meet at the crossroads in life and agree to take separate paths, then with a cheshire grin you both look back and shout, “Beat you to the top of the mountain”, followed by the funnest sprint of both of your lives.

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

Tomorrow has not invited you yet, so LIVE for today! Tomorrow is near, yet so far away. Choose this day to smile, laugh, love unconditionally, and be happy within.

When you focus on lack and scarcity and what you don’t have, you fuss about it with your family, you discuss it with your friends, you tell your children that you don’t have enough - “We don’t have enough for that, we can’t afford that” - then you’ll never be able to afford it, because you begin to attract more of what you don’t have. If you want abundance, if you want prosperity, then focus on abundance. Focus on prosperity. (Lisa Nichols) Many people in Western culture are striving for success. They want the great home, they want their business to work, they want all these outer things. But what we found in our research is that having these outer things does not necessarily guarantee what we really want, which is happiness. So we go for these outer things thinking they’re going to bring us happiness , but it’s backward. You need to go for the inner joy, the inner peace, the inner vision first, and then all of the outer things appear. (Marci Shimoff)

The world needs huge positive energy to fight against the negative forces. Go to the center of your inner begin and generate that positive energy for the welfare of the humanity.

Once you begin traveling, it might so happen that you discover a place where people are just like you.

Learn to observe your emotions without needing to act or distract yourself from them. Within that stillness your truest most vulnerable thoughts will arise and it is these thoughts that will show you where your healing work must begin.

You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your inner enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter. One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.

You have an inner prosperity guide: your intuition. When you begin to pay attention to it, it will lead you to this truth - Abundance is your birthright.

You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can’t, except maybe for a moment or two. Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don’t even know that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

But a yogi never forgets that health must begin with the body. Your body is the child of the soul. You must nourish and train your child. Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for. Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills. It has to be earned through sweat.

World peace begins with inner peace. Those who do not wage war within themselves do not wage war outside themselves.

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude begins with counting your blessings. In simpler terms, gratitude is expressing thanks for gifts we receive. Genuine gratitude helps us to see the little things in life that are often overlooked, yet so precious.

I am ready to fly with both wings. Every day will always be filled with hope because every day is a new beginning to fulfill my destiny.

I AM THE NARRATOR OF MY STORY. I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN WRITE THE NARRATIVE, THE BEGINNING, AND THE END OF THE CHAPTERS IN MY LIFE.

Inner peace begins when nothing can disturb the calmness of your mind.

Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, “I have lost it” and instead say, “It has been returned to where it came from.

A man matters, his experiences matter, but in a city, where experiences come by the thousands, we can no longer relate them to ourselves, and this is of course the beginning of life’s notorious turning into abstraction.“ „There is always something ghostly about living constantly in a well-ordered state. You cannot step into the street or drink a glass of water or get on a streetcar without touching the balanced lever of gigantic apparatus of laws and interrelations, setting them in motion or letting them maintain you in your peaceful existence; one knows hardly any of these levers, which reach deep into the inner workings and, coming out of the other side, lose themselves in a network whose structure has never yet been unraveled by anyone. So one denies their existence, just as the average citizen denies the air, maintaining that it is empty space. But all these things that one denied, these colorless, odorless,tasteless, weightless, and morally indefinable things such as water, air, space, money, and the passing of time, turn out in truth to be the most important things of all, and this gives life a certain spooky quality.

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love. To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core. When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education. Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God

Remember that a fresh breath of life follows every sigh of exasperation. Breathe in, breathe out, and ENJOY every moment. It is how everything begins and ends. - Charmainism

Once you touch that place of inner peace within you, magic begins on the outside.

Once we begin to make peace with ourselves on the inner level, life seems to flow much more pleasantly.

Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment? We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.” Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it? Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves! Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go! Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it. I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.

When we pay attention to our breathing, our in-breath and out-breath become peaceful and relaxed. When we walk with attention and we just walk without thinking or being carried away by anything, we already begin to heal.

Something wonderful begins to happen with the simple realization that life, like an automobile, is driven from the inside out, not the other way around. As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present. Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It’s absolutely true that “Wherever you go, there you are.

The song begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be unsung forever.

Remembering to be conscious is the beginning of inner peace and freedom.

Learn to relax. Your body is precious, as it houses your mind and spirit. Inner peace begins with a relaxed body.

THE BEGINNING OF FREEDOM is the realization that you are not the possessing entity — the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind.

Self-Love Searching for the one thing, That would set my sad soul free. In time I stumbled upon it, An inner calm and peace; And now I am beginning, To see and believe, In who I am becoming- And all I’ve yet to be.

Fear and paranoia create many of our worldly struggles. We get something in our minds and our distorted perception sculpts the reality of what we see. Even though what we see isn’t really there, we tend to act as if it is. We then begin to put people and things into boxes, labeling them, and limiting them due to our fears.

Little Light There is this little light within, Her name is Hope, And I know that as long as I can feel her there, Just beneath my skin, Sending her waves within the labyrinth of my mind, She is snugly at peace within my heart, And I have a chance.

Love is not the answer, peace is. Throughout my whole life I have experienced and seen others use love as a reason to treat people with unkindness by being controlling, jealous, shouting in anger, and projecting guilt and shame. If you love someone but there is not peace in your heart when you think of that person then your work is not done. Do not stop at love, continue all the way towards the freedom of inner peace. Love starts when peace begins. Without peace love is simply a mask for our insecurity, judgment, and egoic attachments.

Nothing can truly be taken from us. There is nothing to lose. Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, "I have lost it" and instead say, "It has been returned to where it came from." [...] The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.

EPILOGUE This course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend goes with you. You are not alone. No one who calls on Him can call in vain. Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you, if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him. He will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that seems to trouble you. He knows the way to solve all problems, and resolve all doubts. His certainty is yours. You need but ask it of Him, and it will be given you. You are as certain of arriving home as is the pathway of the sun laid down before it rises, after it has set, and in the half-lit hours in between. Indeed, your pathway is more certain still. For it can not be possible to change the course of those whom God has called to Him. Therefore obey your will, and follow Him Whom you accepted as your voice, to speak of what you really want and really need. His is the Voice for God and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth. No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead. He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word. His is the Word that God has given you. His is the Word you chose to be your own. And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful follower, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self. He will continue. Now you walk with Him, as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed; as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end. The end is certain, and the means as well. To this we say “Amen.” You will be told exactly what God wills for you each time there is a choice to make. And He will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will claim you not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your reach. And so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for peace and sure direction. Joy attends our way. For we go homeward to an open door which God has held unclosed to welcome us. We trust our ways to Him and say “Amen.” In peace we will continue in His way, and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His Will in everything we do. He loves God’s Son as we would love him. And He teaches us how to behold him through His eyes, and love him as He does. You do not walk alone. God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless.

Without exception, I begin every day of my life with an expression of gratitude. As I look in the mirror to begin my daily ritual of shaving, I say, “Thank you, God, for life, for my body, for my family and loved ones, for this day, and for the opportunity to be of service. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

When we can accept reality as it is and are okay with it without needing to change it, we then can begin to take steps toward creating a brighter reality for ourselves and others, coming from a place of understanding. But when we are motivated to change reality due to our discomfort with it, we do not think clearly. The reason that there is so much suffering in the world is because people are too busy judging everyone and everything, and through the judgments they perpetuate the suffering. People are so focused on changing outside conditions, all the while forgetting the judgment and separation within their own heart.

Love starts when peace begins.

When you resolve what you see on the inside, you begin to solve what you see on the outside.

Any peace talks should begin with making peace with ourselves. First we need to recognize our anger, embrace it, and make peace with it. You don’t fight your anger, because your anger is you. Your anger is the wounded child in you. Why should you fight your anger? The method is entirely nonviolent: awareness, mindfulness, and tenderly holding your anger within you. Like this, your anger will transform naturally.

The most important relationship in the world is the bond that you share with your own self. Are you comfortable being you or you’re always trying to be someone else? Are you able to live up to your own expectations or often end up feeling inadequate and incomplete? Are you being true to yourself and your dreams or you’re trying to live someone else’s definition of success? Those are some vital questions you’d have to answer to determine how you feel about yourself and your life. We often see the world as a reflection of who we are. When you’re cool and tranquil on the inside, you will echo the same peace in all your relationships. When you’re all messed up inside, your actions and reactions too will resonate your inner chaos. To have beautiful and worthy relationships, begin by having an honest and fulfilling relationship with yourself.

We are evolving beyond the need for instinctual survival. No longer do we need to rely on our instincts of fight or flight, because our stresses today are not life-threatening. We have the recourse to remain at peace and in tune with the Universe. No longer do we need to be blinded by our impulsive human behaviors and reactions. We are coming to a time of transcendence in which we can choose to unplug ourselves from our predictable reactions and create a new future. Right now, our futures are easily calculable by those who understand the formula for humanity. Yet, what is missing from the formula is humanity’s ability to awaken and begin to truly exercise free will.

...us brave ones need to show others that it's okay to be spiritual and NOT have all our shit together. This gives others hope that they, too, can begin or continue their spiritual journey even if they still do things they or others see as "not good enough.

We need to cease allowing the past to define us. We are evolving as a human race, and just because war and aggressive competition has always been a part of our heritage, that doesn’t mean we are forever destined to war and engage in aggressive competition. We are moving forward to a time when the heart will guide us. We once had to fight to survive, and some still do. Yet now it is time to lay down our weapons and open our hearts to the expansive potential of human compassion and creativity. Where our attention goes, energy flows. Do we continue to focus on opposition and give it our energy? Or do we begin to focus our energy on our own authentic freedom to shine and help to illuminate the world? The choice is ours. There are no mistakes – you are exactly where you need to be, and you were born with the precise gifts needed to transform a dying world into a thriving planet.

When a soul has been cleansed, and the Lord is on intimate terms with it, it begins to apply all its inner force in striving after God. Yet the soul cannot do anything of itself. God alone arranges everything. The soul knows this and is mindful of it. It is still in exile and understands well that there may yet come cloudy and rainy days, but it must now look upon things differently from what it had up to now. It does not seek reassurance in a false peace, but makes ready for battle. It knows it comes from a warrior race. It is now much more aware of everything. It knows that it is of royal stock. It is concerned with all that is great and holy.

In order to answer the question “Who am I?”, in order to go back to before the beginning within your own experience, you have to put your attention on the deepest sense of what it feels like to be yourself right now, and simultaneously let everything else go. Letting go means falling so deeply into yourself that all that is left is empty space. To discover that infinite depth in your own self, you must find a way to enter into a deep state of meditation—so deep that your awareness of thought moves into the background and eventually disappears. As your awareness detaches itself from the thought-stream, your identification with emotion and memory begins to fall away. When awareness of thought disappears, awareness of the passing of time disappears along with it. If you keep penetrating into the infinite depths of your own self, even your awareness of your own physical form will disappear. If you go deep enough, letting your attention expand and release from all objects in consciousness, you will find that all the structures of the created universe begin to crumble before your eyes. Awareness itself—limitless, empty, pristine—becomes the only object of your attention. As your attention is released from the conditioned mind-process, freed from the confines of the body and the boundaries of the personal self-sense, the inner dimension of your own experience begins to open up to an immeasurable degree. Imagine that you have been fast asleep in a small, dark chamber, then suddenly awaken to find yourself floating in the infinite expanse of a vast, peaceful ocean. That’s what this journey to the depths of your own self feels like. You become aware of a limitless dimension that you did not even know was there. Moments before, you may have experienced yourself as being trapped, a prisoner of your body, mind, and emotions. But when you awaken to this new dimension, all sense of confinement disappears. You find yourself resting in, and as, boundless empty space. In that empty space, the mind is completely still; there is no time, no memory, not even a trace of personal history. And the deeper you fall into that space, the more everything will continue to fall away, until finally all that will be left is you. When you let absolutely everything go—body, mind, memory, and time—you will find, miraculously, that you still exist. In fact, in the end, you discover that all that exists is you!

Genuine spiritual practice requires us to learn how to stop the war. This is a first step, but actually it must be practiced over and over until it becomes our way of being. The inner stillness of a person who truly “is peace” brings peace to the whole interconnected web of life, both inner and outer. To stop the war, we need to begin with ourselves.

And with the sense that, on the contrary, there is nothing really wrong with him, he does not need to nurse any bitterness towards his mother and step-family anymore. He even begins to suspect that he might be the normal one, and they might after all be kind of weird and unnerving: a strangely guilt-inducing thought, which makes him go back to wishing them inner peace and happiness again.

Take five minutes every day and just sit in silence. In that time, put these questions to your attention and heart: “Who am I? What do I want for my life? What do I want from my life today?” Then let go, and let your stream of consciousness, your quieter inner voice, supply the answers. Then, after five minutes, write them down. Do this every day and you’ll be surprised at how situations, circumstances, events, and people will orchestrate themselves around the answers. This is the beginning of synchrodestiny.

Reading while listening to the sounds of birds and the rush of water. This is the way of life that has come to be idealized. Don't think of unpleasant things right before bed. A five minute "bed zazen" before going to sleep. People who do their best to enjoy what is before them have the greatest chance to discover inner peace. Often, whatever it is they are enjoying - the thing before them - has the potential to turn into an opportunity. Stop dismissing whatever it is that you are doing and start living. Seek not what you lack. Be content with the here and now. When you are uncertain, simplicity is the best way to go. Conscientious living begins with early to bed, early to rise. This is the secret to a life of ease and contentment. Don't be bound by a single perspective. There is more than just "the proper way". Possibility springs from confidence. When someone criticizes us, we immediately feel wounded. When something unpleasant happens, we cannot get it out of our head. What can we do to bounce back? One way to strengthen the mind is though cleaning. When we clean, we use both our head and our body. Recognize the luxury of not having things. Desire feeds upon itself and the mind becomes dominated by boundless greed. This is not happiness. The three poisons are greed, anger and ignorance. Be grateful for every day, even the most ordinary. The happiness to be found in the unremarkable. Your mind has the power to decide whether or not you are happy. There is not just one answer. The meaning behind Zen koans. When there are things we want to do, we must do them as if our lives depend on it. Time spent out of character is empty time.

Somewhere beyond Tibet, among the icy peaks and secluded valleys of Central Asia, there lies an inaccessible paradise, a place of universal wisdom and ineffable peace called Shambhala . . . It is inhabited by adepts from every race and culture who form an inner circle of humanity secretly guiding its evolution. In that place, so the legends say, sages have existed since the beginning of human history in a valley of supreme beatitude that is sheltered from the icy arctic winds and where the climate is always warm and temperate, the sun always shines, the gentle airs are always beneficent and nature flowers luxuriantly.

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sandbanks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps. There were moments when one's past came back to one, as it will sometimes when you have not a moment to spare to yourself; but it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream, remembered with wonder amongst the overwhelming realities of this strange world of plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it any more; I had no time. I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a look-out for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's steaming. When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily.

The states of birth, suffering, love and death, are extreme states: extreme, universal, and inescapable. We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge. It is for this reason that all societies have battled with that incorrigible disturber of peace – the artist. I doubt that future societies will get on with him any better. The entire purpose of society is to create a bulwark against the inner and the outer chaos, literally, in order to make life bearable and to keep the human race alive. And it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, that the people, in general will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. They do not know how they will live without those traditions which have given them their identity. Their reaction, when it is suggested that they can or that they must, is panic. And we see this panic, I think, everywhere in the world today, from the streets of our own New Orleans to the grisly battleground of Algeria. And a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing the human damage.

Buddhist Psychology You can use enlightening Buddhist practices to transform your life. Unfortunately, many people do not know it, but the Buddhist Dharma, or teaching, is actually a scientific system of psychology, developed in India and further refined in Tibet. It is a psychology that works. I call it a „joyous science of the heart“ because it is based on the idea that while unenlightened life is full of suffering, you are completely capable of escaping from that suffering. You can get well. In fact, you already are well; you just need to awaken to that fact. And how do you do this? By analyzing your thought patterns. When you do, you realize that you are full of „misknowledge“ - misunderstandings of yourself and the world that lead to anger, discontent, and fear. The target of Buddhist practice and the constant theme of this book is the primal misconception that you are the center of the universe, that your „self“ is a fixed, constant, and bounded entity. When you meditate on enlightened insights into the true nature of reality and the boundlessness of the self, you develop new habits of thinking. You free yourself from the constraints of your habitual mind. In other words, you teach yourself to think differently. This in turn leads you to act differently. And voila! You are on the path to happiness, fulfillment, and even enlightenment. The battle for happiness is fought and won or lost primarily within the mind. The mind is the absolute key, both to enlightenment and to life. When your mind is peaceful, aware, and under your command, you will be securely happy. When your mind is unaware of its true nature, constantly in turmoil, and in command of you, you will suffer endlessly. This is the whole secret of the Dharma. If you recognize delusion, greed, anger, envy, and pride as the main enemies of your well-being and learn to focus your mind on overcomming them, you can install wisdom, generosity, tolerance, love, and altruism in their place. This is where enlightened psychology can be most useful. Psychology and philosophy are really one entity in Buddhism. They are called the inner science, the science of the human interior. In the flow of Indian history, it is fair to say that the Buddha was a great explorer of the human interior rather than some sort of religious prophet. He came into the world at a time when people were just beginning to experiment with self-exploration, but mostly in an escapist way, using their focus on the inner world to run away from the sufferings of life by entering a supposed realm of absolute quiet far removed from everday existence. The Buddha started out exploring that way too, but then realized the futility of escapism and discovered instead a way of being happier here and now. (pp. 32-33)

Benefit #10 - Willingness to Let Things Go We tend to hold onto things that have caused us emotional pain. Examples include mistakes that carried terrible consequences, perceived slights from others, and regrettable decisions from our distant past. These things can sometimes begin to define us. They become a part of our identity. When they become so, they rob us of the inner peace and confidence we would otherwise experience. When you develop mental toughness, you’ll become more inclined to let such things go. Rather than dwelling on past pains and regrets, you’ll see them as stepping stones to your continual growth. Every mistake become a lesson from which to acquire insight. Every perceived slight becomes an opportunity to nurture valued relationships. Every regrettable decision becomes a chance to reexamine your intentions and ensure they align with your values. Ultimately, after these things have served their purpose, you’ll be able to move on, leaving them where they belong: in the past.

Then at a certain moment they lose heart, and the storm that was outside comes inside -- the storm is within them too. Anguish, death no longer simply circle round, they come inside. And then they turn to Christ and do what we very often do with God: we look at God in time of stress and tragedy, and we are indignant that He is so peaceful. The story in the Gospel underlines it by saying that Christ was sleeping with His head on a pillow- the final insult. They are dying and He is comfortable. This is exactly what we feel about God so often. How dare He be blissful, how dare He be so comfortable when I am in trouble? And the disciples do exactly what we do so very often. Instead of coming to God and saying 'You are peace, you are the Lord, say a word and my servant will be healed, say a word and things will come right', they shake Him out of His sleep and say 'Don't you care that we are perishing?' In other words, 'If you can do nothing, at least don't sleep. If you can do nothing better, then at least die in anguish with us.' Christ reacts, He gets up and says 'Men of little faith!' and brushing them aside, He turns towards the storm and, projecting His inner stillness, His harmony and peace on the storm He says 'Be still, be quiet' and everything is quiet again.

The teachings tell us that obstacles occur at the outer level and at the inner level. In this context, the outer level is the sense that something or somebody has harmed us, interfering with the harmony and peace we thought was ours. Some rascal has ruined it all. This particular sense of obstacle occurs in relationships and in many other situations; we feel disappointed, harmed, confused, and attacked in a variety of ways. People have felt this way from the beginning of time. As for the inner level of obstacle, perhaps nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.

John Bradshaw, in his best-seller Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, details several of his imaginative techniques: asking forgiveness of your inner child, divorcing your parent and finding a new one, like Jesus, stroking your inner child, writing your childhood history. These techniques go by the name catharsis, that is, emotional engagement in past trauma-laden events. Catharsis is magnificent to experience and impressive to behold. Weeping, raging at parents long dead, hugging the wounded little boy who was once you, are all stirring. You have to be made of stone not to be moved to tears. For hours afterward, you may feel cleansed and at peace—perhaps for the first time in years. Awakening, beginning again, and new departures all beckon. Catharsis, as a therapeutic technique, has been around for more than a hundred years. It used to be a mainstay of psychoanalytic treatment, but no longer. Its main appeal is its afterglow. Its main drawback is that there is no evidence that it works. When you measure how much people like doing it, you hear high praise. When you measure whether anything changes, catharsis fares badly. Done well, it brings about short-term relief—like the afterglow of vigorous exercise. But once the glow dissipates, as it does in a few days, the real problems are still there: an alcoholic spouse, a hateful job, early-morning blues, panic attacks, a cocaine habit. There is no documentation that the catharsis techniques of the recovery movement help in any lasting way with chronic emotional problems. There is no evidence that they alter adult personality. And, strangely, catharsis about fictitious memories does about as well as catharsis about real memories. The inner-child advocates, having treated tens of thousands of suffering adults for years, have not seen fit to do any follow-ups. Because catharsis techniques are so superficially appealing, because they are so dependent on the charisma of the therapist, and because they have no known lasting value, my advice is “Let the buyer beware.

Do not be weighed down by the failures and disappointments of this day. Resolve to begin tomorrow anew, seeking to walk with Me.

© 2000 The Barcelona Review, interview made by Sarah Martin with Patricia Anthony on the subject of her novel FLANDERS - Why did you choose to write about World War I? The easy answer to your question "Why?" would be that I wanted to write about death in all its aspects, from the terror and pain of it to the transcendent beauty of the end. Normally I don't begin a novel with a theme, but allow the theme to grow organically, just as I allow my characters and story to grow on their own and follow where they lead. Anyway, this time, rather than the idea, I played with theme. I looked around history for just the right death--the worst grinding horror of it, the great maw of the beast. The perfect choice, of course, was WWI. Not when the Americans entered the war - then the war became mobile. The soldiers climbed up out of the trenches. The early tanks made their debut. Earlier, then. So the secondary characters had to be British, as I didn't know enough about the Germans. It wouldn't be appropriate to set the novel in 1914 when, despite the slaughter of the British Army, many soldiers still believed the war would be won soon. No. It had to be the tag end of 1915, expanding until that dismal, wet autumn of 1916 when in Flanders the mud was so deep that the wounded drowned in it, that horses couldn't move. Hope was lost and all that was left was the daily grind of battle. War had become commonplace, a way of life, no longer a goal to be won. War had become the terrible, mindless machine that rolls over everything in its path - morality and courage and even outrage become moot in its shadow. But in that darkness, Travis Lee's enlightenment. And in the end, of course, the only light of the book resides in him, even though his external world is uncompromisingly dark. What I wanted to do was show one man who faces the worst that life and death has to offer, yet still has inner peace. Travis Lee's story is that of a man on his road toward enlightenment.

Find clarity in the stillness. New ideas and new understandings will come to you. As inner peace begins to wash over you, you will find that many of the things you have been so concerned with, don't even matter at all. Problems will literally dissolve into non-problems.

As long as we’re breathing, we have a chance to start over and build a stable future.

mind

When you feel you have limited or no freedom… whether in business, personal or spiritual pursuits… It's time to begin exploring other options and choices out there. You always have options and choices in life.

You have to open up your heart to your soul and accept your body and your mind. The next phase is when you begin to accept every other part that is inherent to your very being.

Pay attention to your soul- notice where you are weak, where you are incapable and realize that these are areas presented to you as ones you have to work on because the true essence of your soul is that it wants to grow and expand. It does not want to be restricted; the part of you that has prevented you from growth is the part that tells you how depressed, sad, weak or anxious you are. Begin to pay attention to your soul; all it wants is to grow.  

The Laziness Lie has tried to convince us that our desires for rest and relaxation make us terrible people. It’s made us believe that having no motivation is shameful and must be avoided at all costs. In reality, our feelings of tiredness and idleness can help save us by signaling to us that we’re desperately in need of some downtime. When we stop fearing laziness, we can find time to reflect and recharge, to reconnect with the people and hobbies that we love, and to move through the world at a more intentional, peaceful pace. “Wasting time” is a basic human need. Once we accept that, we can stop fearing our inner “laziness” and begin to build healthy, happy, well-balanced lives.

Often, when you are feeling beaten and broken, you conclude that Life is cruel. You think that only you have an unsolvable, insurmountable, problem. You also begin to believe that most people around you don’t want to understand you. To find inner peace in such times of upheaval and turmoil, step back, and look at your own Life from a distance. Think of yourself like a fly on the wall – and be a witness of your own Life. You will then realize that there is no grand conspiracy to vanquish you. You will see that: • There are many blessings in your Life that you can count. • Your problems are not so severe after all. • People are behaving the way they are because they are caught in their own web of emotions, circumstances, beliefs, opinions and problems. These people are beaten and broken too; they are searching for meaning themselves. It is your craving, that you shouldn’t have any problems, and that you must be understood, which is causing you pain – and suffering. Drop that craving. And you will, at once, be peaceful – and happy.

How will that eventually be a contribution to humanity? That is truly our common goal. Can we contribute something to education through cultivating emotional balance? As His Holiness often says, we cannot have outer peace without inner peace. We cannot have an outer disarmament without inner disarmament. If we want to have a harmonious society, it has to begin with and within each of us.

The daily decision to rejoice—to cultivate a way of seeing our lives in God’s good world, not through the lens of our phones, news apps, or flesh, but through gratitude, celebration, and unhurried delight—will over time form us into joyful, thankful people who deeply enjoy life with God and others. What starts as an act of the will eventually turns into our inner nature. What begins with a choice eventually becomes a character.

Growth begins when we stop seeking validation from others and start listening to the whispers of our soul.

Jung sums up his discovery: During those years, between 1918—1920, I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the Self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the Self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later, everything points toward the center. This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned. I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the Self I had attained what was for me the ultimate. Perhaps someone else knows more, but not I.67

The dynamic of addiction is that if you look to something that God created, to give you what it wasn’t intended to give you, either you get discouraged quickly, and wisely abandon those hopes, or you go back again and again, and in so doing, you begin to travel down addiction’s road. That created thing will give you a short-term buzz of euphoria, it will offer you temporary pleasure, it will provide a momentary sense of well-being, it will briefly make you feel that you’re something, and it may even make your problems seem not so bad for a bit. It’s all very intoxicating. It all feels great. The problem is that the created thing that you’re looking to has no capacity to satisfy your heart. It wasn’t designed to do that. It cannot give you inner peace. It cannot give you the heart rest of contentment. It cannot quiet your cravings. In a word, it cannot be your savior. And if you look outside of the Savior for something to be your savior, that thing will end up not being your savior but your master. You’ll love the short-term buzz, but you’ll hate how short it is. So you’ll have to go back again quickly to get another shot, and before long you’ve spent way too much time, energy, and money on something that can’t satisfy; but because of what it has briefly done for you each time, you’re convinced that you can’t live without it. You’re hooked and you may not know it. The thing you once desired, you’re now persuaded that you need, and once you’ve named it a need, it has you.

When you begin to see that this assignment of extreme virtue or evil to a person or object is what makes them an object of lust or hatred, the emotion built on that exaggeration backs off; we

Here’s a big lesson: The secret of passion is purpose. Once you find your calling—that compelling cause that you can give your life over to—your heart will begin to sing, and you’ll have more passion, power, and inner peace than you ever could have imagined. Discovering

The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to wake.

Our homes and workplaces are divided as well. Within each rise our own Mount Moriahs—outward issues that come to symbolize all of the inner turmoil we are feeling. In one home it might be the dishes, in another the finances, and in yet another the disciplining of the children. At work, we may come to focus on the title or the status or the level of respect we think we deserve. We begin to do battle around these issues, and the more we battle, the larger they loom on the landscape until finally our home and workplace quakes build mountains so high they create their own weather systems. If you don’t believe me, just witness what happens to the climate in a room when parties start doing battle around one of their Mount Moriahs.

Under all the senseless thoughts and mad ideas with which you have cluttered up your mind are the thoughts that you thought with God in the beginning.

Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn't mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get its teeth into problems. Thats why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs. You have no interest in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the “off” button? You mean stop thinking altogether? No, I can't, except maybe for a moment or two. Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

April 14 Inspired Invincibility Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me. Matthew 11:29 “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with Him, and we groan and say—“Oh Lord, let me be like other people!” Jesus is asking us to take one end of the yoke—“My yoke is easy, get alongside Me and we will pull together.” Are you identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God for the pressure of His hand. “To them that have no might He increaseth strength.” God comes and takes us out of our sentimentality, and our complaining turns into a psalm of praise. The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and learn of Him. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Where do the saints get their joy from? If we did not know some saints, we would say—“Oh, he, or she, has nothing to bear.” Lift the veil. The fact that the peace and the light and the joy of God are there is proof that the burden is there too. The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness. If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. It is a positive crime to be weak in God’s strength.

Lao Tze's vision is compatible with the Positive Paradigm of Change. In fact, placing the language of his passages into the levels of the Wheel serves to clarify his vision. The model is therefore shown here, along with its application to the subtitle: Common Sense. The right-brain compliment to the left-brain words of Passage One is also supplied below as a hint of what's possible. Einstein's warning, the basis of Rethinking Survival, could well have been spoken by a Chinese sage: 'Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison [of separatist thinking] by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." Prominent themes which link Einstein with the Chinese yoga tradition include not only Compassion but also Unity and Survival. In addition, anticipating the Positive Paradigm, Lao Tze repeated alludes to a timeless center at life's hub encompassed by the surface rim of fluctuating events. 1. The Eternal is beyond words, undefinable and illusive, all-pervading yet mysterious. The timeless, though ungraspable, is the unfailing source of all experience. To transcend mortality, and attain sublime peace, turn inward, releasing desire and ambition. To manifest inner vision, accomplishing every goal in time, extend outward with passionate conviction. Unmanifest and manifest are two sides of a coin, seamlessly joined, though apparently opposite. Entering this paradox is the beginning of magic.

Feelings of despair, anger, hatred, bitterness, stress, and depression stem from the ego’s anxiety and insistence on living up to an external standard. The result is the anguish of not measuring up or fitting in properly. The ego will seldom allow you to rest, and demands more and more because it’s terrified that you’ll be called a failure. When you move beyond ego and make your higher self the dominant force in your life, you’ll begin to feel that contentment and inner glow of peace and success that characterizes the extra mile. 2.

Peace is an effect, or offspring, of Truth. To find Truth without is to find Truth within. To find Truth within is to find peace within. To find peace within is to find the source to peace without. In the event that the source to peace without is found, it cannot become a reality until it is first lived. To live in peace is to express Truth and to express Truth is to multiply peace. Peace begins as an internal realization of Truth, and then translates into an external expression of Truth. There cannot be peace without until there is first peace within. There cannot be peace within until there is first an inner realization of Truth.

You are unlimited in this regard when you observe what you believe, when you release those beliefs that limit you, and fully step into your power as the creator of your reality. You have control with your beliefs, your thoughts, and your emotions to manifest, to create your outer world around you, not through pain or struggle but through inner peace. Your outer world, too, will begin to shift and lift into alignment, into love and full connection with the spiritual realm when you make these inner shifts. Indeed, you are here on earth to transcend all limiting beliefs from your ancestors, your family, yourself, and your society, releasing all limitations, and embracing positivity, well-being, harmony, and love. When these are the emotions behind your core beliefs, that fill you, then manifesting what you desire in the physical—peace, love, abundance, and happiness—your process becomes effortless.

Body Positioning: Your back and neck must be straight, your head will sit comfortably, and your teeth should touch but not be clenched. Focus on your breath and relax your mind. Count each time that you inhale and each time that you exhale. Once you reach ten, start back at one. When you start to drift and begin thinking a thought, just observe it, let it go, and start focusing on the breath again. It’s perfectly normal that you drift off as a beginner. Now, begin counting at one. Keep doing this for the amount of time that you set aside. 15 minutes is good for a beginner. Then, after a few days, you should go for 20 minutes. Once you can get to ten without having to start over, count the inhale and exhale together until you reach ten. As you get better at focusing, you will be able to simply turn your attention to your breath without the need for counting. You will be able to move around in the quiet and stillness you have created. Observe your inner self and all that is around you, using all of your senses.

SHADOW: You are overwhelmed by the energy of others, and this can sometimes lead to impulsive reactions. You sometimes feel emotions, seemingly out of the blue, and cannot understand what caused these feelings. NEED: You need time alone to recover or process information at a very deep level. GIFT: You might be an empath or highly sensitive person (HSP). An empath is someone who can feel other people’s feelings with their heightened intuition. An HSP is someone who is acutely aware of external stimuli on a sensory level. Your gift is feeling energy. When you learn how to understand the feelings that come your way from others as powerful messages, you can become an energy alchemist. With practice, instead of absorbing the energy of other people and situations, you can turn intuitions into important messages that bring light within yourself and to others. The ability to recognize and name these emotions is a beginning point for working with spiritual energy toward a place of peace and harmony for all.

When the familiar landscape of your days begins to fade, and the light that once brought clarity softens to a dim glow, do not fear the shadows that stretch long before you. The colors that once painted your world may now appear drained, but in their quiet retreat, a new vision is born. This unfamiliar space, where certainty dissolves, invites you to slow down and breathe, to trust the unfolding of what is yet to be seen.

Hold yourself gently in this vulnerable place, as you would a tender shoot pushing through the earth. Trust in the process of growth, even when you cannot yet see the signs. For it is in the depths of darkness, where everything seems lost, that the first glimmers of new life begin to stir. And within this hidden place, the seeds of renewal are being nourished, preparing to bloom into a light that will guide you toward the warmth of a new season, where the promise of spring lies just beneath the surface.

In Zen there are fortunately none of those marvellously incomprehensible words as in Indian cults. Neither does Zen play about with complicated Hatha-yoha techniques which delude the physiologically thinking European with the false hope that the spirit can e obtained by sitting and by breathing. On the contrary, Zen demands intelligence and will power, as do all the greater things which desire to become real. Personal experience is everything in Zen. To get the clearest and most efficient understanding of a thing, it must be experienced personally. In the working of the Eastern mind there is something calm, quiet, silent, undisturbable, which appears as if always looking into eternity. The spirit of Buddhism has left its highly metaphysical superstructure in order to become a practical discipline of life. The result is Zen. In Zen are found systematized, or rather crystallized, all the philosophy, religion and life itself of the Far-Eastern people, especially of the Japanese. If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way. This getting into the real nature of one's own mind or soul is the fundamental object of Zen Buddhism. The truth is, Zen is extremely elusive as far as its outward aspects are concerned. Unless you devote some years of earnest study to the understanding of its primary principles, it is not to be expected that you will begin to have a fair grasp of Zen. Anything that has the semblance of an external authority is rejected by Zen. Absolute faith is placed in a man's own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within. When Zen is thoroughly understood, absolute peace of mind is attained and a man lives as he ought to live. What more may we hope? What makes Zen unique as it is practiced in Japan is its systematic training of the mind. The great truth of Zen is possessed by everybody. Look into your own being and seek it not through others. The question: How can one always be with Buddha? called forth the following answer from a master: Have no stirrings in your mind, be perfectly serene toward the objective world. To remain thus all the time in absolute emptiness and calmness is the way to be with the Buddha. Zen thinks we are too much of slaves to words and logic. A quiet, self-confident and trustful existence of your own - this is the truth of Zen. The desire to possess is considered by Buddhism to be one of the worst passions with which mortals are apt to be obsessed. What in fact causes so much misery in the world is the universal impulse of acquisition.

When evening descends and the world is hushed in twilight, may the moon’s soft arc remind you of the mysteries that dwell in the quiet spaces between your thoughts, where dreams come to rest like weary travelers at your door. Welcome them with the innocence of a child, for they carry within them the seeds of new beginnings, the untold stories that your heart longs to hear.

And as you sit by the water’s edge, may you remember the secrets hidden in the depths, the songs sung by the unseen, and the nameless world where everything begins anew. In that place, may you glimpse the light of your own soul, shining with the same brilliance as the stars that adorn the heavens.

Yung Pueblo, the modern poet and philosopher, is a beacon of personal growth, healing, and self-awareness. His words, steeped in wisdom, resonate with people seeking peace, transformation, and a deeper connection with themselves. Let's look at some of Yung Pueblo's quotes and break them down in a way that adds value to your life. Each quote is followed by an easy-to-understand explainer, using metaphors to help you understand his message's depth. These explanations are guideposts, showing how to apply his insights to your journey. ## Yung Pueblo Quotes on Healing **"True healing is the willingness to treat yourself with kindness."** Healing is like tending to a garden. You can't rush it, and you can't force it. As you carefully water plants and pull weeds, you must approach yourself with patience and compassion. Only by treating yourself kindly will you create an environment where healing can flourish. **"The more you heal, the less you push away what's uncomfortable."** Healing isn't about avoiding discomfort—it's about embracing it. Think of it like building a muscle. Every stretch and strain makes you stronger. As you heal, you grow more capable of sitting with discomfort, knowing that it's part of the process, not a thing to run from. **"Healing happens when you are ready to let go of what is hurting you."** Letting go is like releasing a heavy anchor holding your ship in place. You can't sail forward until you free yourself from the weight of old wounds. Healing begins when you untie yourself from the past and allow yourself to move freely into the future. ## Yung Pueblo Quotes About Self-Love **"You must love yourself so deeply that your energy and presence become a gift to the world."** Imagine your heart as well. The more you fill it with love for yourself, the more you have to share with others. Self-love isn't selfish—the overflow enriches everything and everyone around you. By loving yourself deeply, you become a gift to those you meet. **"Self-love is creating space in your life to take care of yourself."** Self-love is like building a sanctuary in your daily life. You need to create space, even negligible, to retreat and recharge. It's not about indulgence; it's about recognizing that taking care of yourself is essential to thriving in a busy, chaotic world. **"Self-love is accepting that you are a constantly evolving work of art."** You are like a canvas, always in progress. Some days, the strokes are bold; others, they're gentle. Self-love means accepting that your life is a masterpiece in progress—you are never finished, and that's where the beauty lies. Embrace each phase and layer, and know it all adds to something magnificent.

When we feel unfocused, tired, and lazy, it’s often because we desperately need some time to rest our bodies and brains. Research has repeatedly shown that a person on the verge of burnout will have trouble staying focused and productive.40 No amount of pressure and stress can magically help a person overcome that lack of focus and motivation. The solution is to cut way back on expectations for a while. Overextended people have to find space in their lives to sleep, power down their stressed-out minds, and recharge their mental and emotional batteries. You can wait until you reach a breaking point like Max and I did, or you can prevent illness and burnout by being gentle with yourself before it’s too late. The Laziness Lie has tried to convince us that our desires for rest and relaxation make us terrible people. It’s made us believe that having no motivation is shameful and must be avoided at all costs. In reality, our feelings of tiredness and idleness can help save us by signaling to us that we’re desperately in need of some downtime. When we stop fearing laziness, we can find time to reflect and recharge, to reconnect with the people and hobbies that we love, and to move through the world at a more intentional, peaceful pace. “Wasting time” is a basic human need. Once we accept that, we can stop fearing our inner “laziness” and begin to build healthy, happy, well-balanced lives.

now the time to reckon with that question? We may begin to feel tendrils of doubt, the upwelling of inconvenient longings and needs, an uneasy sense that suppression or chronic discord will not be sustainable. We may encounter dread, fear, and a desire to escape through work, or screens, or drink. We’re dimly aware we may have to lose in order to gain, that painful upheavals may be the cost of emotional growth or inner peace. Oscillating between what is and what could be, between reality and possibility, between embracing and relinquishing, we feel disoriented and confused. When