Quotes from Gina Lake

Love is possible only when you drop all ideas and beliefs and meet another just as he or she is showing up in the moment, fresh and new.

One of the qualities of our true nature besides being aware is that it is allowing and accepting. "Noticing" captures how consciousness touches the experiences of life but doesn't push them away, cling to them, judge them, or even evaluate them as good or bad, which are all features of the egoic self.

The only thing that exists is the present moment, the Now, but we, as human beings, have a particular relationship with our thoughts that takes us out of the experience of the moment.

with our thoughts—any thought—we lose touch with the peace and contentment of the Now.

It's only when we are identified with the mind ("I think it, therefore it's true") that differences become a problem, because then we believe what comes next: the mind's assertion of what needs to be done about that problem.

That judgments close hearts should be pretty obvious. Judgments come from a closed heart, so naturally they also cause others to close their hearts. Judgments are a perfect example of an internal reality, or climate, determining one's external reality. When you openly judge others, you will be judged in return, as predictably as the night follows the day.

Chasing after what we want only results in more wanting, not in satiation.

No one else but you can actually make you feel love or feel loved. That is solely up to you. Love is an experience that happens within you. It is an experience of your heart being open. If your heart is open, you won't need love from another person. It's only when your heart is closed that you feel a need for love from another.

The antidote to the stress and suffering caused by the egoic mind is letting everything be as it is.

The feeling of unworthiness or that something is missing in our life is often at the root of excessive busy-ness and striving and therefore at the root of stress. By being very busy or working very hard, we often try to compensate for such feelings of lack. Alternately, we might seek love and approval from others or compulsively try to fix and improve ourselves.

You choose love over whatever the egoic mind is telling you about life, the past, the future, yourself, someone else, or what you should do. You recognize these messages as coming from the ego, and you choose not to listen to them.

The mind is useful in making distinctions between things, finding differences, and evaluating them.

antidote to judgment is accepting people the way they are and not imposing our desires and expectations on them. Our

When we relate from Essence, the dominant feeling is acceptance: You allow others to be the way they are. In fact, you celebrate how they are. This doesn't mean you might not dislike something about them, but the general feeling toward them is that everything is just right as it is.

Being aligned with aliveness instead of our thoughts and feelings actually makes us more effective and functional—and also more kind—than being identified with our thoughts and feelings.

Life unfolds as it will regardless of whether we like what's happening or not. By opposing life, we eventually learn this truth. We learn how impotent our opposition to life is and that this opposition causes only suffering. What's left is choosing to agree with life—to love whatever is, no matter what that looks like.

Without our stressful thoughts, we would be kinder, more relaxed, more at peace, lighter emotionally, and more in tune with our innate wisdom and the natural flow of life.

You are the Beloved you have been searching for, for so long.

love is allowing: You allow the person to be exactly the way he or she is without any reservations or desires for anything to be different than it is.

Emotional wounding creates the deepest distortions in one's personal illusory reality and therefore the greatest suffering.

Becoming aware of the beliefs behind the emotional wound frees you from this cycle of pain and hurt.

When things don't go as planned, simply asking, "Is it that important?" can be helpful. Answer this question from a place of being zoomed out: "Will this be important a year from now or several years from now? Will this be important on my deathbed?" Many of the things we get upset about wouldn't be important even moments or days later.

The ego just makes the mistake of looking for happiness in the wrong places. In fact, the egoic mind is the only thing in the way of happiness. It is the problem, not the solution. When the mind is quiet, all there is, is love,

The more present we are to life, the more enjoyment we get out of life. The opposite is also true: The less present we are to life, the less enjoyment we get out of life.