Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.

Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.

We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.

All situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.

It is a commitment to respect whatever life brings that we develop wholehearted determination to use discomfort as an opportunity for awakening, rather than trying to make it disappear.