We wait for things to be different in order to feel okay with life. As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, we’ll always be left waiting for it.

It is through realizing loving presence as our very essence, through being that presence, that we discover true freedom.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.

If you let someone know you appreciate him or her, especially when you're going to disagree, it gets that person's defenses down.

The most powerful healing arises from the simple intention to love the life within you, unconditionally, with as much tenderness and presence as possible.

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."

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.