Emotions are our most common experience of being moved by forces seemingly beyond our control. As such, they are among the most confusing and frightening phenomena of everyday life. People often treat them as a nuisance or a threat, yet failing to experience them straightforwardly undermines sanity and well-being.
How can we begin to relate to emotions in a more direct and fearless way? Can we ever befriend our emotions and accept them as part of us? Why is emotion so hard to come to terms with in our culture?…
…If we could let ourselves feel just what we feel, instead of reacting against it, condemning it, or trying to manipulate and suppress it, perhaps we could develop greater confidence about facing whatever life confronts with.
Excerpt from Awakening the Heart by John Welwood
Self-awareness
Self-acceptance
The proper nourishment for personal growth is a loving acceptance and encouragement by others not rejection and impatient suggestions for improvement. Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, not in the atmosphere of rejection. We have said that personal growth resembles physical growth: all the energies and tendencies are there.
But there is in most of us a civil war that stunts our personal growth. It is our inner struggle for self-acceptance.
Excerpt from Will the Real Me Please Stand Up? by John Powell, S. J.
Getting to know YOU!
One of the most important aspects of extreme self-care begins with reestablishing a relationship with yourself – becoming familiar with your needs and desires; essentially, getting to know you. Since most of us spend far too much time on the needs of others, we lose touch with the most important relationship of all – the relationship to ourselves.
Excerpt from Take Time for Your Life by Cheryl Richardson