The greatest barrier to own own healing is not the pain, sorrow or violence inflicted upon us as children. Our greatest hindrance is our ongoing capacity to judge, to criticize, and to bring tremendous harm to ourselves. If we can harden our heart against ourselves and meet our most tender feelings with anger and condemnation, we simultaneously armor our heart against the possibility of gentleness, love and healing.

As Gandhi wisely points out, even as we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us.

The last place we tend to look for healing is within ourselves.

The heart of most spiritual practices is simply this: Remember who you are. Remember what you love. Remember what is sacred. Remember what is true. Remember that you will die and that this day is a gift. Remember how you wish to live.

Every single choice we make, no matter how small, is the ground where who we are meets what is in the world. And the fruits of that essential relationship- the intimate, fertile conversation between our own heart's wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us- becomes a lifelong practice of deep and sacred listening for the next right thing we are required to do. We make the only choice that feels authentic and honest, necessary and true in that moment.

Effortlessness is the ability to slow down and listen for the spaces between the joints... Deep within all things there is a natural rhythm, a music of opening and closing, expansion and contraction.

Be not afraid. A kind life, a life of spirit, is fundamentally a life of courage-the courage simply to bring what you have, to bring who you are.