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I speak a lot about what I call the trance of unworthiness which is really epidemic in our culture, this sense of I'm not enough, or something's wrong with me. Most of us have some level of it because our culture has all these standards (handed down through our families) of what it means to be okay.

Tara Brach

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Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
Culture
Families
Speak
Standards
Sense
Okay
Enough
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Unworthiness
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Trance
Really
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More quotes by Tara Brach

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The way to develop the habit of savoring is to pause when something is beautiful and good and catches our attention - the sound of rain, the look of the night sky - the glow in a child's eyes, or when we witness some kindness. Pause... then totally immerse in the experience of savoring it.
Tara Brach
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Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
Tara Brach
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We are mindful of desire when we experience it with an embodied awareness, recognizing the sensations and thoughts of wanting as arising and passing phenomena. While this isn't easy, as we cultivate the clear seeing and compassion of Radical Acceptance, we discover we can open fully to this natural force, and remain free in its midst.
Tara Brach
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I think of desire as the essence that brings forth the whole universe.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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Telling each other the truth and being who we are, and having space for the other person's vulnerability in being who they are, allows us to move in a kind of dance together that's very fluid and graceful.
Tara Brach
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If you can, do a gratitude practice: Each day write down three things you're grateful for. There are different ways to do this. You can have a gratitude buddy, someone with whom, at the end of the day, you exchange messages listing these three things you are grateful for. Also, you can journal it or reflect on it silently.
Tara Brach
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The main thing going on around intimacy is that we've developed a lot of strategies so we'll be a desirable package.
Tara Brach
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Managing life from our mental control towers, we have separated ourselves from our bodies and hearts.
Tara Brach
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I registered the dukkha of self-aversion with such clarity that I knew there was no freedom unless I could love this life without holding back. This didn't mean I was going to ignore my flaws and stop seeking to improve what I could. But in the deepest way, I was not going to fixate on the conclusion that something was wrong with me.
Tara Brach
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True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are. Ultimately, its our own true nature.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.
Tara Brach
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The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.
Tara Brach
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That non-attachment gives us the freedom to be exactly who we are.
Tara Brach
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If our hearts are ready for anything, we can open to our inevitable losses, and to the depths of our sorrow. We can grieve our lost loves, our lost youth, our lost health, our lost capacities. This is part of our humanness, part of the expression of our love for life.
Tara Brach
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When we're awake in our bodies and sense, the world comes alive. Wisdom, creativity, and love are discovered as we relax and awaken through our bodies.
Tara Brach
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When someone says to us, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, Darling, I care about your suffering, a deep healing begins.
Tara Brach
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I would say both Western psychology and Eastern paths would recognize that we get caught up in feeling like a separate self and an unworthy self.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach