Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.

Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds.

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness.

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid.

Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.

Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.