A Life of Greatness
By listening you’ll learn why we should expect failure and how it is crucial to any kind of success.
CLEAR ALL
In 1989, at one of the first international Buddhist teacher meetings, Western teachers brought up the enormous problem of unworthiness and self-criticism, shame and self-hatred that frequently they arise in Western students’ practice.
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At a weekend workshop I led, one of the participants, Marian, shared her story about the shame and guilt that had tortured her.
Tara Brach is an in-the-trenches teacher whose work counters today's ever-increasing onslaught of news, conflict, demands, and anxieties—stresses that leave us rushing around on auto-pilot and cut off from the presence and creativity that give our lives meaning.
How do shame and compassion relate to one another?
Shame is one of the most destructive of human emotions. If you suffered childhood physical or sexual abuse, you may experience such intense feelings of shame that it almost seems to define you as a person. In order to begin healing, it’s important for you to know that it wasn’t your fault.
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This meditation brings the clarity and self-compassion of RAIN to the suffering of self-aversion and/or shame. It helps us see the conditioning that shaped what we judge about ourselves, and helps us remember who we are beyond our habitual and painful self-narrative.
Many equate self-discipline with living a good, moral life, which ends up creating a lot of shame when we fail. There’s a better way to build lasting, solid self-discipline in your life.
Emotions link our feelings, thoughts, and conditioning at multiple levels, but they may remain a largely untapped source of strength, freedom, and connection.
The quest for perfection is exhausting and unrelenting. There is a constant barrage of social expectations that teach us that being imperfect is synonymous with being inadequate. Everywhere we turn, there are messages that tell us who, what and how we’re supposed to be.
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