We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

- Marcel Proust, French novelist, literary critic, and essayist

Self compassion is the act of nurturing your mind, body, and soul. Knowing you are worthy of love, capable of anything, and beautiful beyond words. Embracing yourself just as you are and accepting yourself along the journey of life.

There are many external forces that want power over one and wish to dictate how one knows oneself and life. However, one is, by natural disposition, free to be who one truly is.  Imagine - what would it be like to know oneself and hold true to one's innate, unique authenticity and let it find its creative expression in all spaces of one's life?

You should begin to build up confidence and joy in your own richness. That richness is the essence of generosity. It is the sense of resourcefulness, that you can deal with whatever is around you and not feel poverty-stricken.

- Chogyam Trungpa, Tibetan Buddhist master

When we are able to know our protective processes and practice relaxing them in the safety of the therapeutic relationship we may find access to our essential Self. The Self knows, includes, accepts and loves all parts of us. Self has the ability to heal emotional wounds. Everyone has a Self. You, too.

One of the strangest things you discover once you really begin looking at your own mind is that life has this peculiar way of giving you what you want, but only when you stop clutching at it…You begin to see the universe was never withholding anything from you. You were simply moving against the current, insisting the river should bend to your will. The moment you ease the resistance just a little, life begins to show you the path it already prepared. That’s not weakness, it’s intelligence. That’s wisdom because the river has always known where it was going. You were the one trying to paddle upstream. We spend our lives trying to control things that were never in our control to begin with. We draw maps, make plans, tighten our grip on the steering wheel only to discover again and again that life has a far stranger choreography than anything we could choreograph ourselves. The mind hates this of course. It wants certainty the way a child wants a nightlight. It says, “Tell me how it will unfold. Tell me now.” But reality doesn’t operate by deadlines or demands. It moves like weather - unpredictable, organic and completely uninterested in your expectations. In Zen, they speak of the Great Doubt. Not doubt as in pessimism, but doubt as in surrendering the fantasy that you can intellectually pin down the universe...the universe isn’t an equation it’s a mystery - alive, moving, breathing. And the more you insist on controlling it the more it slips through your fingers.

- Alan Watts, British and American writer and speaker known for interpreting and popularizing Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
 
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars, to change the world.

- Harriet Tubman, American abolitionist and social activist

A child who grows up with no reliable human source of love, support and protection typically falls into a great deal of social unease. He "naturally" becomes reluctant to seek support from anyone, and he is forced to adopt self-sufficiency as a survival strategy.

Needing anything from others can feel especially dangerous. The survivor's innate capacity to experience comfort and support in relationship becomes very limited or non-existent. This is despite the fact that many high functioning survivors learn to socially function quite adequately.

This is particularly the case in structured situations where expectations are clear and common goals take the focus off conversing and put it on task accomplishments. Unstructured social situations however, like attending parties or just hanging out, can be considerably more triggering. Spontaneous self-expression feels like the same setup for disaster that it was in childhood.

- Pete Walker MFT, from Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

From the Sufi poet Rumi:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense."

Still and quiet one may notice one is aware of being aware. Resting in that awareness one may notice an unshakeable foundation of calm, compassion, clarity, connectedness, creativity, courage, and confidence fissioning away in an eternal presence. All experience flows through it, yet it remains inviolate. It has a name: I Am.

They (the Greeks) were the first Westerners; the spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world...To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction.

- Edith Hamilton, American educator and internationally known author and authority on classical antiquity.