Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.
~ Sharon Salzberg
Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others.
When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.
Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.
Perfection is fragile, interacting with something that seems perfect puts it in peril.
Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.
Sometimes people in abusive situations think they’re responsible for the other person’s happiness or that they’re going to fix them and make them feel better. The practice of equanimity teaches that it’s not all up to you to make someone else happy.
Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.
The more we identify and acknowledge moments when we’re unable to share in someone else’s pleasure and ask ourselves whether another person’s happiness truly jeopardizes our own, the more we pave the way for experiencing sympathetic joy
The more we practice sympathetic joy, the more we come to realize that the happiness we share with others is inseparable from our own happiness.
It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people and helps us to turn toward them with compassion.
Cultivation of positive emotions, including self-love and self-respect, strengthens our inner resources and opens us to a broader range of thoughts and actions.
Genuine awe connects us with the world in a new way.
The costs of keeping secrets include our growing isolation due to fear of detection and the ways we shut down inside to avoid feeling the effects of our behavior. We can never afford to be truly seen and known—even by ourselves.
A key barometer to help us weigh the rightness of our actions is self-respect.
The wholesome pursuit of excellence feels quite different from perfectionism.
We nurture our sense of connection with the larger whole, noticing that the whole is only as healthy as its smallest part.
You don't have to love yourself unconditionally before you can give or receive real love.
Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us.
Only when we start to distinguish reality from fantasy that we can humbly, with eyes wide open, forge loving and sustainable connections with others.
One foundation of loving relationships is curiosity, keeping open to the idea that we have much to learn even about those we have been close to for decades.
Be open to the possibility that there are other paths available to you in relating to yourself and to another.
Without equanimity, we might give love to others only in an effort to bridge the inevitable and healthy space that always exists between two people.
Whether we fear the existence of boundaries with others or crave more of them, there’s no denying that individuation and separation are inevitable parts of loving relationships that become the site of tension.
How we traverse the space between us when conflict arises has a profound effect on the health and longevity of our relationships.
The paradigm for our relationships is formed from our earliest experiences and is actually hardwired into our neurological and emotional network.
Letting go of the belief that we’re powerless to help relieve our own suffering enhances our ability not only to heal but also to genuinely love and receive the love of others.
We learn from conflicts only when we are willing to do so.
Love is a living capacity within us that is always present, even when we don’t sense it.
Sanskrit has different words to describe love for a brother or sister, love for a teacher, love for a partner, love for one’s friends, love of nature, and so on. English has only one word, which leads to never-ending confusion.
When our focus is on seeking, perfecting, or clinging to romance, the charge is often generated by instability, rather than by an authentic connection with another person.
Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it’s also more grounded & sustainable.
From our first breath to our last, we’re presented again and again with the opportunity to experience deep, lasting, and trans-formative connection with other beings: to love them and be loved by them; to show them our true natures and to recognize theirs.
Buddhist teachings discourage us from clinging and grasping to those we hold dear, and from trying to control the people or the relationship. What’s more, we’re encouraged to accept the impermanence of all things: the flower that blooms today will be gone tomorrow, the objects we possess will break or fade or lose their utility, our relationships will change, life will end.
Whatever language we use use to describe healthy relationships, when we’re in them, we feel nourished by them, in body as well as mind.
Though it may seem counter intuitive to our inner perfectionist, recognizing our mistakes as valuable lessons (not failures) helps us lay the groundwork for later success.
Science tells us that love not only diminishes the experience of physical pain but can make us—and our beloveds—healthier.
Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves.
There are an incalculable—even infinite—number of situations in which we can practice forgiveness. Expecting it to be a singular action—motivated by the sheer imperative to move on and forget—can be more damaging than the original feelings of anger. Accepting forgiveness as pluralistic and as an ongoing, individualized process opens us up to realize the role that our own needs play in conflict resolution.
Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.
