The Practice: Finding Peace Within
“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side.”
Daily Practice and Reflection:
The heart practice of Metta, loving kindness, is all about friendliness, befriending the moment but more importantly befriending ourselves, finding peace with who we are. The one thing I desired most at the beginning of my practice was to accept and love myself just as I was (and of course this is still a work in process).
Life on this path requires us to make friends with ourselves. We must be a good companion otherwise being human is just too intense, too difficult, too painful. We need to encourage ourselves rather than putting ourselves down or making ourselves wrong. By being on our own side, we can walk the path with courage, confidence, and the belief that we are capable.
Making peace with ourselves also means doing the work of trusting ourselves, a deep trust in our own capacity to handle whatever comes our way. And this perspective can be quite radical for many. When we move forward with heart and trust, when we commit to knowing all parts ourselves through compassion, we are pointed towards growth and change. We heal and transform. This type of heart centered wisdom begins with the simple act of accepting ourselves, making peace with who we are at our core. Remembering our true essence and goodness.
“I know I can practice being with things in a way I don’t turn on myself.”
Meditation Practice:
“The biggest sign of self-growth is self-compassion.”
“Forgive yourself for what you did and said to yourself when you did not know how to love yourself.”
“There are no shortcuts to wholeness. The only way to become whole is to put our arms lovingly around everything we’ve shown ourselves to be: self-serving and generous, spiteful and compassionate, cowardly and courageous, treacherous and trustworthy. We must be able to say to ourselves and to the world at large, “I am all of the above.”
“Peace is this moment without judgment. This moment in the heart-space where everything that is, is welcome.”
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
“Be wise. Treat yourself, your mind, sympathetically, with loving kindness. If you are gentle with yourself, you will become gentle with others.”
“Though the gold of your true nature can get buried beneath fear, judgment, and confusion, the more you trust this loving presence as the truth of who we are, the more you will call it forth in yourself and in all those you touch.”
“It follows that I must accept myself for what I am before I can deliberately change it.”