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Quote by Brenda Seefeldt Amodea

“I feel so alone. Shame survives by convincing me I am alone. Whether my pain was caused by my bad decision or whether something tragic happened to me, shame is loud in my head. All of God’s promises that I know do not quiet this shame. Shame feels comforting when I feel so helpless. Because it is easier to feel shame than it is to feel helpless. Shame is something I think I have control over. Except shame lies.”

Quote by Brenda Seefeldt Amodea

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I Wish I Could Take Away Your Pain

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Brenda Seefeldt Amodea

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“When I say celebrate, I mean become more and more sensitive to everything. In life, dance should not be apart. The whole life should become a dance; it should be a dance. You can go for a walk and dance. Allow life to enter into you, become more open and vulnerable, feel more, sense more. Small things filled with such wonders are lying all around. Watch a small child. Leave him in the garden and just watch. That should be your way also; so wonderful, wonder-filled: running to catch this butterfly, running to catch that flower, playing with mud, rolling in the sand. From everywhere the Divine is touching the child. If you can live in wonder you will be capable of celebration. Don't live in knowledge, live in wonder. Life is surprising; everywhere, it is a continuous surprise. Live it as a surprise, an unpredictable phenomenon: every moment is new. Just try, give it a try! You will not lose anything if you give it a try, and you may gain everything. But you have become addicted to misery. You cling to your misery as if it is something very precious. You become cruel because you don't know how to become compassionate. It is a negative state. The same energy that is cruelty will become compassion. With an unalert mind the energy becomes violence; with an alert mind the same energy becomes compassion. In sleep the same energy becomes torture, either of yourself or of somebody else. When you are awake, the same energy becomes love, for yourself and for others also. You are already where you need to be, you are already in that space which you are seeking. Just make a little effort to come out of your clinging to misery. Don't invest in misery; invest in celebration. You take one step towards life and life takes one thousand towards you. Just take one step out of your clinging to misery. The mind will go on pulling you backwards. Just be indifferent to the mind and tell the mind, 'Wait, I have lived enough with you, now let me live without mind.' That's what a child is: living without mind, or, living with no mind.”

“Our compassionate minds emerge from patterns of brain activity that can be easily suppressed by other patterns such as those for anger and anxiety, tribalism and prejudice, desire and lust. Our minds can go into different states that feel and think quite different things, so we need to try to choose what we will focus on, what states of mind we want to train ourselves for. We can’t rid ourselves of these ‘other’ minds but we can balance them. We can focus and attend to the good in the world and the good in ourselves and realise that sometimes the wind will blow us off course but we can just pick ourselves up and return to our direction of travel – to transform our minds in the service of compassion.”

“Our compassionate minds emerge from patterns of brain activity that can be easily suppressed by other patterns such as those for anger and anxiety, tribalism and prejudice, desire and lust. Our minds can go into different states that feel and think quite different things, so we need to try to choose what we will focus on, what states of mind we want to train ourselves for. We can’t rid ourselves of these ‘other’ minds but we can balance them. We can focus and attend to the good in the world and the good in ourselves and realise that sometimes the wind will blow us off course but we can just pick ourselves up and return to our direction of travel – to transform our minds in the service of compassion." (p.507)”