Meditation Quotes

“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, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences—good and bad alike—are opportunities to learn and grow.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away.”
― Sharon Salzberg

“Wholehearted acceptance is a basic element of love, starting with love for ourselves, and a gateway to joy. Through the practices of loving kindness and self-compassion, we can learn to love our flawed and imperfect selves. And in those moments of vulnerability, we open our hearts to connect with each other, as well. We are not perfect, but we are enough.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we direct a lot of hostile energy toward the inner critic, we enter into a losing battle.”
― 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, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Loving ourselves calls us to give up the illusion that we can control everything and focuses us on building our inner resource of resilience.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“By accepting and learning to embrace the inevitable sorrows of life, we realize that we can experience a more enduring sense of happiness.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Causing harm is never just a one-way street.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we feel conflicted about a particular decision or action, our bodies often hold the answer—if we take the time to stop and tune in.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Mindfulness allows us to shift the angle on our story and to remember that we have the capacity to learn and change in ways that are productive, not self-defeating.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Perfection is fragile; interacting with something that seems perfect puts it in peril.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Though it may seem counter intuitive to our inner perfectionist, recognizing our mistakes as valuable lessons (not failures) helps us lay the groundwork for later success.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“The wholesome pursuit of excellence feels quite different from perfectionism.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we approach the journey acknowledging what we do not know and what we can’t control, we maintain our energy for the quest.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“The journey to loving ourselves doesn’t mean we like everything.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Wherever the responsibility lies, shame creates a solid and terrible feeling of unworthiness that resides in our bodies: the storehouse of the memories of our acts, real or imagined, and the secrets we keep about them.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“The heart contracts when our bodies are overcome by shame.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Shame weakens us. It can make us frightened to take on something new. We start to withdraw from whatever might give us pleasure, self-esteem, or a sense of our value.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“To imagine the way we think is the singular causative agent of all we go through is to practice cruelty toward ourselves.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“It’s affirming that we can look at any experience from the fullness of our being and get past the shame we carry.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“We can use meditation as a way to experiment with new ways of relating to ourselves, even our uncomfortable thoughts.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“if we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculpted by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Paying attention to the ethical implications of our choices has never been more pressing—or more complicated—than it is today.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“If we harm someone else, we’re inevitably also hurting ourselves. Some quality of sensitivity and awareness has to shut down for us to be able to objectify someone else, to deny them as a living, feeling being—someone who wants to be happy, just as we do.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“When we do our best to treat others with kindness, it’s often a struggle to determine which actions best express our love and care for ourselves.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“Our minds tend to race ahead into the future or replay the past, but our bodies are always in the present moment.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection