{"id":1759,"date":"2009-05-06T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2009\/05\/fresh-living-befriending-who-w.html"},"modified":"2009-05-06T09:00:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T09:00:07","slug":"fresh-living-befriending-who-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/05\/fresh-living-befriending-who-w.html","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Living: Befriending Who We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh Living blogger Valerie Reiss<\/a> and I have been on the same wave length lately. Shortly after I taped my video on befriending ourselves, I found her blog post on the same topic<\/a>. Valerie quotes Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron about meditation and accepting ourselves:
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

“When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, they often think that somehow they’re going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are. It’s a bit like saying, ‘If I jog, I’ll be a much better person.’ ‘If I could only get a nicer house, I’d be a better person.’ ‘If I could meditate and calm down, I’d be a better person’…\u00a0\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

“But loving-kindness (maitri) toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To read more Beyond Blue, go to http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue<\/a>, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To subscribe to “Beyond Blue” click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Fresh Living blogger Valerie Reiss and I have been on the same wave length lately. Shortly after I taped my video on befriending ourselves, I found her blog post on the same topic. Valerie quotes Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron about meditation and accepting ourselves: “When people start to meditate or to work with any kind…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nFresh Living: Befriending Who We Are - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2009\/05\/fresh-living-befriending-who-w.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fresh Living: Befriending Who We Are - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fresh Living blogger Valerie Reiss and I have been on the same wave length lately. 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