Offer some gesture of kindness to yourself. Sometimes it's just a message, to say: "It's okay. You're going to be okay. We've been through this before." The intention is reassurance, that you are not alone and you can do this. It is the most powerful way to come out of what I call the "trance of unworthiness."

In a basic way, acceptance is seeing clearly what's happening and holding it with kindness. This is a radical antidote to the suffering of judging mind.

Everything we love goes. So to be able to grieve that loss, to let go, to have that grief be absolutely full, is the only way to have our heart be full and open.

Compassion can be described as letting ourselves be touched by the vulnerability and suffering that is within ourselves and all beings. The full flowering of compassion also includes action: Not only do we attune to the presence of suffering, we respond to it.

Sometimes the easiest way to appreciate ourselves is by looking through the eyes of someone who loves us.

I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor that the natural life span of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue.

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.