Tiny Buddha's Guide to Loving Yourself: 40 Ways to Transform Your Inner Critic and Your Life by Lori Deschene Read Free Book Online

the end.
    What I realize now is that we can get so overwhelmed by our imperfections that we don't see any goodness in ourselves. In this way, we can destroy our relationship with ourselves, thinking we are flawed and beyond redemption. But it will only cut us off from the very source of joy, beauty, and love.
    I see so many people addicted to substances and external relationships, believing that is where they can find joy and fulfillment. It will only feed into their deep inner insecurity and create more distance from themselves, the true source of joy. I see so many people either choosing to sleep through the everyday experience or run constantly from one place to the next, thinking they can escape their problem.
    Freedom is found not by sleeping or running away, but by choosing to be awake and staying here long enough for the magic doors to open. The act of moving, mindfully, with an attitude of embracing life, will take you from feeling stuck with pain to healing it. Move slowly and you can taste the rich array of sensations. Move too quickly and you'll miss the gifts contained in the moment.
    When you become vulnerable, feel emotions, and stay true to what you are feeling, you liberate yourself from pain. As you allow the sensations to be in your body, while gently breathing through it, you invite the natural force of change to renew you with its constant movement.
    Through years of my own creation of movement therapy, I've cultivated a mindset of self-renewal. I am still discovering more and more goodness in me, and every discovery brings me even more joy. If you haven't found what you're looking for, try adjusting the pace with which you live your life and see if you can find that door to magical possibilities.
SEE LOVE AROUND YOU AND YOU'LL FEEL MORE LOVE WITHIN YOU
    by Jennifer Chrisman
    The most important thing in this world is to learn to give out love, and let it come in .
    —M ORRIE S CHWARTZ
    There is a Native American tale that tells of a young boy speaking with his grandmother. She tells the boy that she has the spirit of two wolves living and battling inside of her. One is vengeful and unkind, as he sees all the world as a threat; the other is loving, secure, and nurturing. The little boy asks his grandmother, “Which one will end up winning?” and the grandmother replies, “Whichever one I feed.”
    We all have this pull inside of us. We can either nurture our fears and insecurities, or we can nurture our trust in love, kindness, and acceptance. This is not a new concept. There is an endless amount of information out there about connecting with your inner self and finding happiness from within—so much that it can feel overwhelming and even discouraging. If you're anything like me, you may find yourself still aching from a broken heart, or beating yourself up for the chocolate-chip cookie you just ate shortly after reading about finding forgiveness, gratitude, and self-love.
    What I realized was missing in my quest for self-improvement—and what kept pulling me back to my old, familiar negative thinking—was faith. To make meaningful changes that allow us to release the grasp of our fears and limiting thoughts and beliefs, we have to be willing to believe in the positivity— believe that we deserve to stop beating ourselves up and looking for an external solution to “fix” us. It's not enough to just think it. We have to believe it.
    The limiting beliefs of our fears are deep-rooted, so we need to meet them from our gut level. We need to really believe that it's okay to step out of our darkness and connect with our light instead.
    Okay. So, how do we do that? We need to find evidence of that love around us. The world we see is a reflection of our inner experience. When we see love and light, we are connected to love and light inside of us. And conversely, when we see the inadequacies around us, we'll connect with that inside of ourselves.
    Look around you. Where can you find evidence of the light in