If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself,

to who you are, here and now and when you get there,

you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom,

even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.

……Masaru Emoto

how do we measure our happiness? our most important kindnesses? our bliss?

The person we want most to love us is ourself. But when we attempt to bring love to ourself, perhaps through a meditation in which we cultivate this quality or in the course of our most ordinary day, we discover that we sometimes think we don’t deserve it. We see self-doubt arising to block this love, an interference which we realize is usually present to some degree almost all of the time. It blinds our beauty. That sense of unworthiness, it seems, comes out of our being talked out of, trained out of, conditioned out of trusting our natural being. It is the result of being turned away from ourselves, taught to distrust ourselves. We are worthy of letting go of our unworthiness. If we did nothing but practice letting go of unworthiness, much of the stuff we’re working so hard to clear away would have no support system. We would have more room to grow. Consciously we surrender unworthiness as it arises, not entertaining it with the ego’s list of credits. the work which will awaken us is that of becoming keenly aware of unworthiness without judging it. Gently, with patience and a lot of love, we acknowledge the being we really are. As a friend puts it, “Always try to see yourself through God’s eyes.”…..Stephen Levine

kindness here

It is your light that lights the world.

…Rumi