Pema Chodron Quotes

I used to fly off the handle in everyday life, but I'm a little calmer now.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.

Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

We have the choice to choose how we're going to educate our emotions.

Emotional pain makes me want to isolate. Or hit back. It's very tough to rise above my natural inclinations. I'm always working on this.

Think about it: what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.

When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.

It is the measure of my individual struggle from darkness toward some measure of light.

We have consciousness and rational powers but unless you're willing to spend the time to gain control of yourself, gain control of your emotions, to think deeply about what you want in a year or two, or where you want your business to be, you're going to be swept away by every new event that occurs in the course of the day or the week and the small amount of time that you plan, that you address to conscious planning, is never enough to overcome the constant tide of emotions and new things happening.

When I read the Bible, I see that we should have victory in our life and be overcomers, and I can't even control my temper. I'm impatient. I'm hard to get along with. I'm selfish and self-centered, and I don't seem to have any control over it.

Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don't interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us.

Don Juan assured me that in order to accomplish the feat of making myself miserable I had to work in the most intense fashion, and that it was absurd. I had now realized I could work just the same in making myself complete and strong. "The trick is in what one emphasizes," he said. "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.

Anger and hatred are the real enemies that we must confront and defeat, not the 'enemies' who appear from time to time in our lives.

Anger does a man more hurt than that which made him angry.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.

The student's job is to stay open-minded, to quell the knee-jerk defensiveness we all possess in the face of suggestions for improvement, and to maintain patience when faced with a process that is often slow, confusing, and frustrating.

It is best if we do not listen to or look at the person whom we consider to be the cause of our anger. Like a fireman, we have to pour water on the blaze first and not waste time looking for the one who set the house on fire. "Breathing in, I know that I am angry. Breathing out, I know that I must put all my energy into caring for my anger." So we avoid thinking about the other person, and we refrain from doing or saying anything as long as our anger persists. If we put all our mind into observing our anger, we will avoid doing any damage that we may regret later.

That external struggle mirrors the struggle of this life force of energy that [princess Margaret] was.

He had discovered that people who allow themselves to be blown about by the winds of emotion and impulse are always unhappy people.

Much of your success in life is determined by how you choose to act in spite of how you feel.