Our greatest longing is to be intimate.

Paying attention is the most basic and profound expression of love.

Making a U-turn from our thoughts to our feelings re-connects us to our own inner experience and creates the grounds for connecting with others in a more authentic way. It's a movement from head to heart.

When we see the secret beauty of anyone, including ourselves, we see past our judgment and fear into the core of who we truly are - not an entrapped self but the radiance of goodness.

When desire for a certain person's attention becomes an "I have to have" kind of grasping, then identity gets organized around needing that and it becomes very solid and sticky. That causes suffering because we're not inhabiting the fullness of who we are, we're fixated and contracted on life being a certain way.

When I'm attached, I find that I don't see the other person as clearly because I'm more caught up in what I'm wanting.

Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There’s less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what’s happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom.