This article has insights that are a good preparation for the January/February webinar that begins next Wednesday, the 15th: Emotional Healing Begins in the Present Moment The Buddha said:  “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

I once took a weekend seminar at NalandaWest in Seattle with a wonderful Tibetan teacher, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, author of Open Heart, Open Mind. Rinpoche has a down to earth, humorous way of presenting the teachings, filled with personal anecdotes.

This is Part 4 of a series of posts called, “Everything That Distresses You.”  This series will be especially helpful for helping you to actually enjoy, and deal creatively with, the challenges that being around family can bring mentally, emotionally, and physically.

If you want to make yourself miserable, here’s the quickest way to do it: get worried about what other people think of you. Just by turning our attention outside, we can begin to imagine that others are judging us harshly.

Most of us came of age in a culture that robbed us of a healthy, clear awareness of our True Desires. In a competitive, dog-eat-dog world, we are fed the idea that satisfying our desires means depriving others of fulfilling their desires.

How can you be your authentic self and embrace the ecstasy of Eros, the highest form of love and relationship?  What do you do when you realize you can’t escape feelings of unworthiness through drugs, sex, rock-n-roll, or material success?

“The most powerful, smallest, and largest thing in the universe is the Mind.” –His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa   When the human mind possesses such awesome power, why is it that  so many of us feel weak and helpless, believing we are “not good enough”?