Sharon Salzberg Quotes - Page 5

The paradigm for our relationships is formed from our earliest experiences and is actually hardwired into our neurological and emotional network.
Sharon Salzberg
Letting go of the belief that we’re powerless to help relieve our own suffering enhances our ability not only to heal but also to genuinely love and receive the love of others.
Sharon Salzberg
The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.
Sharon Salzberg
Mindfulness won’t ensure you’ll win an argument with your sister. Mindfulness won’t enable you to bypass your feelings of anger or hurt either. But it may help you see the conflict in a new way, one that allows you to break through old patterns.
Sharon Salzberg
We learn from conflicts only when we are willing to do so.
Sharon Salzberg
To truly love ourselves, we must challenge our beliefs that we need to be different or better.
Sharon Salzberg
As soon as we ask whether or not a story is true in the present moment, we empower ourselves to re-frame it.
Sharon Salzberg
Maybe what we really need is to change our relationship to what is, to see who we are with the strength of a generous spirit & a wise heart.
Sharon Salzberg
A relationship is the union of two psychological systems.
Sharon Salzberg
When we set an intention to explore our emotional hot spots, we create a pathway to real love.
Sharon Salzberg
Often in close relationships, the subject being discussed is not the subject at all.
Sharon Salzberg
You don't have to love yourself unconditionally before you can give or receive real love.
Sharon Salzberg
When we develop our ability to love in one realm, we simultaneously nourish our ability in others, as long as we remain open to the flow of insight and compassion.
Sharon Salzberg
So often we operate from ideas of love that don’t fit our reality.
Sharon Salzberg
Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us.
Sharon Salzberg
Only when we start to distinguish reality from fantasy that we can humbly, with eyes wide open, forge loving and sustainable connections with others.
Sharon Salzberg
What makes awe such a powerful call to love is that it’s disruptive. It sneaks up on us. It doesn’t ask our permission to wow us; it just does. Awe can arise from a single glance, a sound, a gesture.
Sharon Salzberg
One foundation of loving relationships is curiosity, keeping open to the idea that we have much to learn even about those we have been close to for decades.
Sharon Salzberg
When we don’t tell those we love about what’s really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories.
Sharon Salzberg
Although much of the work we do in committed relationships we do with our partners, sometimes it’s necessary to start with ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg
Forgiveness can be bittersweet. It contains the sweetness of the release of a story that has caused us pain, but also the poignant reminder that even our dearest relationships change over the course of a lifetime.
Sharon Salzberg
When we respond to our pain and suffering with love, understanding, and acceptance—for ourselves, as well as others— over time, we can let go of our anger, even when we’ve been hurt to the core. But that doesn’t mean we ever forget.
Sharon Salzberg
We cannot simply forgive and forget, nor should we.
Sharon Salzberg
To forgive, we may need to open our minds to a fuller exploration of the context in which the events occurred, and feel compassion for the circumstances and everyone involved, starting with ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg
Ultimately, we forgive others in order to free ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg
Real forgiveness in close relationships is never easy. It can’t be rushed or engineered.
Sharon Salzberg
We nurture our sense of connection with the larger whole, noticing that the whole is only as healthy as its smallest part.
Sharon Salzberg
As we explore new ways of thinking, we need to be willing to investigate, experiment, take some risks with our attention, and stretch.
Sharon Salzberg
We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.
Sharon Salzberg
The wholesome pursuit of excellence feels quite different from perfectionism.
Sharon Salzberg
Real love allows for failure and suffering.
Sharon Salzberg
The starting place for radical re-imagining of love is mindfulness.
Sharon Salzberg
The costs of keeping secrets include our growing isolation due to fear of detection and the ways we shut down inside to avoid feeling the effects of our behavior. We can never afford to be truly seen and known—even by ourselves.
Sharon Salzberg
A key barometer to help us weigh the rightness of our actions is self-respect.
Sharon Salzberg
Cultivation of positive emotions, including self-love and self-respect, strengthens our inner resources and opens us to a broader range of thoughts and actions.
Sharon Salzberg
Genuine awe connects us with the world in a new way.
Sharon Salzberg
Because the development of inner calm & energy happens completely within & isn’t dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness and independence that is quite beautiful—and a huge relief.
Sharon Salzberg
Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.
Sharon Salzberg
People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments.
Sharon Salzberg
Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we’re adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere.
Sharon Salzberg
Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.
Sharon Salzberg
We are all too often told by someone that we are too old, too young, too different, too much the same, and those comments can be devastating.
Sharon Salzberg
It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before.Its never too late to take a moment to look.
Sharon Salzberg
When we can step back even briefly from our hurt, sorrow, and anger, when we put our faith in the possibility of change, we create the possibility for non-judgmental inquiry that aims for healing rather than victory.
Sharon Salzberg
The difference between a life laced through with frustration and one sustained by happiness depends on whether it is motivated by self-hatred or by real love for oneself.
Sharon Salzberg
The practice of sympathetic joy is rooted in inner development. It’s not a matter of learning techniques to “make friends and influence people.” Instead, we build the foundations of our own happiness. When our own cup is full, we more easily share it with others.
Sharon Salzberg
Sometimes people in abusive situations think they’re responsible for the other person’s happiness or that they’re going to fix them and make them feel better. The practice of equanimity teaches that it’s not all up to you to make someone else happy.
Sharon Salzberg
Buddhism has a term for the happiness we feel at someone else’s success or good fortune. Sympathetic joy, as it is known, invites us to celebrate for others.
Sharon Salzberg
Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.
Sharon Salzberg
The more we identify and acknowledge moments when we’re unable to share in someone else’s pleasure and ask ourselves whether another person’s happiness truly jeopardizes our own, the more we pave the way for experiencing sympathetic joy
Sharon Salzberg
The more we practice sympathetic joy, the more we come to realize that the happiness we share with others is inseparable from our own happiness.
Sharon Salzberg
It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people and helps us to turn toward them with compassion.
Sharon Salzberg
The idea that traumatic residues—or unresolved stories—can be inherited is groundbreaking.
Sharon Salzberg
The unconscious mind is a vast repository of experiences and associations that sorts things out much faster than the slow-moving conscious mind.
Sharon Salzberg
For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance.
Sharon Salzberg
Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others.
Sharon Salzberg
When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.
Sharon Salzberg
Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.
Sharon Salzberg
Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.
Sharon Salzberg
Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.
Sharon Salzberg