Wanting things to be otherwise is the very essence of suffering. We almost never directly experience what pain is because our reaction to it is so immediate that most of what we call pain is actually our experience of resistance to that phenomenon. And the resistance is usually a good deal more painful than the original sensation.

It doesn't matter how long you forget, only how soon you remember!

We've all been should upon enough.

Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74)

Healing comes when we meet our wounded places with compassion.

If you want the other person more than anything else in the world, you're in major trouble and the relationship is a wobbly pivot. It's different if the thing you want most in the world is truth, and your partner is the person you want most in the world.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call to make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?