The human mind is really good at keeping us stuck in the familiar, even when the familiar is no longer serving us, or never was. This is why we work to foster a relationship w/ the compassionate self, the part that gives us the courage to forge new pathways, even when it's scary.

Just as we can be secure or anxious in our attachments w/ others, we can also be this way with ourselves. We can experience security in relationship with ourselves by practicing things like acceptance, self-validation, and self-compassion. Just as we would with a partner.

When we are dominated by attachment to pleasure or avoidance of pain, we leave very little, if any, space for compassion. Compassion emerges when we can let ourselves be woken up by and truly touched by suffering.

As humans, we are always trying to improve, acquire more, and do better. Our troubles arises when we mistake these things as being the source of happiness.

We exert so much energy struggling against internal experiences that we'd rather not have that when we finally stop fighting these experiences, we find a wellspring of energy that helps us move toward the things that truly matter. There is so much more to life than avoiding pain.

Being human has never been about being happy or avoiding pain. We forget that happiness is not the goal of life, & that living pain free was never part of the deal.

Some of our least wanted emotions -- like anger, disgust, and fear -- are hardwired into the human experience and have served specific evolutionary functions. It makes sense then why attempts to eliminate or avoid them typically doesn't turn out well.

Beating ourselves up about our intense emotions is futile bc these experiences are coded into the fabric of what it means to be human. Strong emotions have helped the human race survive & will contribute to our continued survival. But that doesn't mean they are easy to deal with.

Most of us are taught to hustle for the things we want and the things we do not yet have. But we are not taught to rest and slow down and appreciate what is.

Because we live in a state of near constant sensory overload, we find stillness challenging. We fidget + even become agitated when we try to sit still. We have to fight for our capacity to experience peace + stillness. Peace and stillness are radical.

Our brains are designed to respond to affection, kindness and care from other people. We may sometimes find it difficult to forge kind and loving relationships with others, but in fact we are wired for love.

Being highly self-critical is bad for your health. When we're at war w/ ourselves or parts of ourselves, our threat detection system is in a constant state of activation, which leads to increased stress levels, which are linked to a range of negative health outcomes.

By training the mind in compassion -- through imagery, meditation, visualization, and acts of kindness -- we can deliberately stimulate the systems in our brain that allow us to cultivate a greater sense of peacefulness and contentment.

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It's pretty easy to buy in to the fantasy that we are all independent entities, but the truth is we have evolved as a species to be cooperative and helpful. And research shows that much of our happiness actually comes from our relationships with others.

Much of our suffering is created by the mind. When we understand this, we are exponentially more effective in learning to alleviate and even prevent suffering.

How would you like to be remembered? What have you done today to move closer toward being that person? What have you done today to move further from being that person?

Having goals that are focused around service and helping others as opposed to ego-centered goals leads to greater contentment, less stress and depression, and better relationships.

From an early age, we are taught to consume and retain endless amounts of information that may or may not ever be useful to us, and yet, we are offered very little information about how our minds work.