Find a gap between a trigger event and our usual conditioned response to it and by using that pause to collect ourselves and shift our response
Sharon SalzbergWhen we are devoted to the development of kindness, it becomes our ready response, so that reacting from compassion, from caring, is not a question of giving ourselves a lecture: 'I don't really feel like it, but I'd better be helpful, or what would people think?'
Sharon SalzbergWe use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.
Sharon SalzbergI have seen that there are a number of people who benefit from doing loving kindness meditation, either prior to or along with mindfulness meditation. It varies from person to person of course, but for many, their practice of mindfulness will bring along old habits of self-judgment and ruthless criticism, so it is not actually mindfulness.
Sharon Salzberg