We call people selfish when they WILL NOT give. But they CANNOT give what they DO NOT have. It’s like asking a starving child to share her food, and then making her feel guilty for not wanting to. When we have enough we are eager to share.* *What we have and what we are able to receive are two very different things.

Perhaps, with patience and willingness and experience, or just plain old having suffered enough, I eventually realize that this whole process of going from personality to self-hate to fear to self-hate to personality and back again, has been exactly what I needed to be doing to learn what I needed to learn. I realize that every step I have taken ha

PAINFUL THINGS COME UP NOT TO RUIN OUR LIVES, NOT TO MAKE US MISERABLE, NOT TO SPOIL OUR GOOD TIME, THEY COME UP TO BE HEALED, TO BE EMBRACED IN COMPASSION.

The only way we are ever going to stop abuse in all its forms is by ceasing to believe that punishing people makes them good.

those recommendations, people often say they’re afraid that if they are that kind to themselves they will become egocentric and self-indulgent. But we already are egocentric and self-indulgent! Being kind to ourselves is the way not to be egocentric and self-indulgent!

You cannot be nonviolent if there is any part of yourself that you are in opposition to. You are not truly giving if there is any part of yourself to which you will not extend compassion. Your love will always be conditional as long as you are excluding any part of yourself from it.

We have no control but we think we should have. Letting go of the illusion of control will not make you more vulnerable, it will make you more relaxed, peaceful, open, receptive, joyful, calm. Children have no control and don’t think they should have.

GUIDE: Yes. Self-hate is terrified that you will make being kind to yourself a habit. It comes down to this for me: None of my heroes (and all my heroes are religious types) ever says, “The important thing in the universe is to be at one with fear and inadequacy.”

STUDENT: I think that’s what it would eventually come to. If I don’t do my work, and don’t make money, then I won’t be able to pay for my house, and I won’t have any food. And if I follow that along far enough, I realize that I believe that all those things on the list are designed to keep me alive. And if I don’t do them the ultimate consequence i