Quote

The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.

Tara Brach

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Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
System
Send
Actually
Flight
Used
Nervous
Make
Message
Messages
Biochemical
Response
Freeze
Smile
Muscles
Safe
Relax

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Managing life from our mental control towers, we have separated ourselves from our bodies and hearts.
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The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.
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If I can forgive the attachment in myself and open to the vulnerability that's underneath it, then rather than fixating on another person to satisfy my need, I'm actually going right to where the needs come from and able to bring a real healing.
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Offer some gesture of kindness to yourself. Sometimes it's just a message, to say: It's okay. You're going to be okay. We've been through this before. The intention is reassurance, that you are not alone and you can do this. It is the most powerful way to come out of what I call the trance of unworthiness.
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People don't behave in angry ways unless they are feeling stressed and conflicted too.
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Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.
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If attachment then carries forward in a way that's not healthy, we need to let it be there without making it wrong and bring as compassionate and honest attention to it as possible. Honor that this is part of being human, but it's important to know when it's getting in the way.
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There is so much division in this world. So what is really the path of healing? It can begin in this moment, by embracing the life that`s here.
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There are some things we can't choose, but in being present we can choose how we want to relate to them
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I knew I could hold myself with that absolute love and compassion.
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The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.
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This is for anyone reading this who wants to explore it. Recognize the thought, Afraid of loving, then gently put your hand on your heart to send a message of kindness.
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Sometimes the easiest way to appreciate ourselves is by looking through the eyes of someone who loves us.
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The two wings of mindfulness and kindness will begin to open the heart to more connection with our world.
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When desire for a certain person's attention becomes an I have to have kind of grasping, then identity gets organized around needing that and it becomes very solid and sticky. That causes suffering because we're not inhabiting the fullness of who we are, we're fixated and contracted on life being a certain way.
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I think it's possible to have experiences of love without attachment, but I think part of our conditioning is to grasp at times, especially when there are unmet needs. It's part of our nervous system to hold on to where we think those needs will be met.
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As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.
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Extend an act of kindness each day. No one has to know. It can be a smile, reassuring words, a small favor - without expecting something in return.
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My first book, 'Radical Acceptance', grew out of the suffering of feeling personally deficient and unworthy. Because most of us are so quick to turn against ourselves, the teachings and practices of radical acceptance continue as a strong current in 'True Refuge': nurturing a forgiving, understanding heart is a basic step on the path.
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Meditation helps us gain the capacity to relax, to connect with what is going on right here and right now, to connect with other people, to re-access our resourcefulness, our clarity and our ability to focus and keep an open heart.
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