Quotes About Self-compassion

I'd like to encourage us all to lighten up, to practice with a lot of gentleness. This is not the drill sergeant saying, "Lighten up or else." I have found that if we can possibly use anything we hear against ourselves, we usually do.

It is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others. If we are willing to stand fully in our own shoes and never give up on ourselves, then we will be able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and never give up on them. True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.

As one student said, "Lower your standards and relax as it is.

In order to be gentle and create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself, it's necessary to stop talking to yourself about how wrong everything is—or how right everything is, for that matter.

Practicing loving-kindness toward ourselves seems as good a way as any to start illuminating the darkness of difficult times.

The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us - is that we're not there for ourselves.

The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate.

Our journey of making friends with ourselves is not a selfish thing. We're not trying to get all the goodies for ourselves. It's a process of developing loving-kindness and a true understanding for other people as well.

We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we're doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we're doing.

When we hear about compassion, it naturally brings up working with others, caring for others. The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us - is that we're not there for ourselves. There are whole parts of ourselves that are so unwanted that whenever they begin to come up we run away.

Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to try to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves.

The point is that you begin where you are, you see what a child you are, and you don't criticize that. You begin to explore, with a lot of humor and generosity toward yourself, all the places where you cling, and every time you cling, you realize, "Ah!

This is where, through my mindfulness and my tonglen and everything that I do, my whole life is a process of learning how to make friends with myself.

What makes maitri such a different approach is that we are not trying to solve a problem. We are not striving to make pain go away or to become a better person. In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart.

We can know the nature of dislike, shame, and embarrassment and not believe there's something wrong with that. We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. It's better to take a straight look at all our hopes and fears.

You are never going to get it all together, you're never going to get your act together, fully, completely. You're never going to get all the little loose ends tied up.

It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope—that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns.

Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.

you begin where you are, you see what a child you are, and you don't criticize that.

We don't have to be harsh with ourselves when we think, sitting here, that our meditation or our oryoki or the way we are in the world is in the category of worst horse.

Among them was a man who had killed people in the Vietnam War and was tortured by self-loathing and guilt. Chögyam Trungpa told him, "That was then. This is now. You can always connect with your true nature at any time and be free of everything that went before.

After all, we're all imperfect, and others have the right to tell us about it from time to time. But are you obliged to make yourself miserable and hate yourself every time someone flies off the handle or puts you down?

Hidden Shoulds are not expressed explicitly with terms like should, ought, or must, but they're implied by your negative thoughts and feelings. For example, if you berate yourself whenever you make a mistake, you're essentially telling yourself that you should be perfect and should never goof up.