Quotes from Tara Brach

As a friend of mine put it, "Feeling that something is wrong with me is the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing." When we experience our lives through this lens of personal insufficiency, we are imprisoned in what I call the trance of unworthiness. Trapped in this trance, we are unable to perceive the truth of who we really are.

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.

Attention is the most basic form of love. By paying attention we let ourselves be touched by life , and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged.

Spiritual awakening is the process of recognizing our essential goodness, our natural wisdom and compassion.

The poet Longfellow writes, "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

I was manipulating my inner experience rather than being with what was actually happening.

Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.

We can't understand the nature of reality until we let go of controlling our experience.

If our sense of who we are is defined by feelings of neediness and insecurity, we forget that we are also curious, humorous and caring. We forget about the breath that is nourishing us, the love that unites us, the enormous beauty and fragility that is our shared experience in being alive.

We might begin by scanning our body . . . and then asking, "What is happening?" We might also ask, "What wants my attention right now?" or, "What is asking for acceptance?

Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.

We withdraw from our experience of the present moment. We pull away from the raw feelings of fear and shame by incessantly telling ourselves stories about what is happening in our life.

Like investigation, healthy doubt arises from the urge to know what is true--it challenges assumptions or the status quo in service of healing and freedom. In contrast, unhealthy doubt arises from fear or aversion, and it questions one's own basic potential or worth, or the value of another.

There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Carl Rogers

Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you.

The belief that we are deficient and unworthy makes it difficult to trust that we are truly loved

When we trust that we are the ocean, we are not afraid of the waves.

Most of the time Marilyn's mother remained unconscious, her breath labored and erratic. One morning before dawn, she suddenly opened her eyes and looked clearly and intently at her daughter. "You know," she whispered softly, "all my life I thought something was wrong with me." Shaking her head slightly, as if to say, "What a waste," she closed her eyes and drifted back into a coma.

As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.

Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you.

In anguish and desperation, I reached out as I had many times before to the presence I call the Beloved. This unconditionally loving and wakeful awareness had always been a refuge for me.

Rather than relaxing and enjoying who we are and what we're doing, we are comparing ourselves with an ideal and trying to make up for the difference.

We speak about losing our minds as if it is a bad thing. I say, lose your mind. Do it purposefully. Find out who you really are beyond your thoughts and beliefs. • VIRONIKA TUGALEVA