You don't have to change or get rid of negative thoughts or feelings. You only need to recognize that they are temporary, and that you are an expansive being that is spacious enough to host them as they pass through.
The human mind is really good at keeping us stuck in the familiar, even when the familiar is no longer serving us, or never was. This is why we work to foster a relationship w/ the compassionate self, the part that gives us the courage to forge new pathways, even when it's scary.
We aren’t trying our to get rid of any part of us. No part of you is broken, not even your inner critic. Holding compassion for our self-critical, anxious and angry parts today. Welcome to wholeness, with a heart as wide and strong as the ocean.
Take a moment to rest, place a hand on your heart and direct love, acceptance and support inward. Whatever suffering you have experienced, or even caused, you have this moment to begin again in love. Even if you reject that love in the next one, direct love inward in this moment.
For a long time it seemed to me
that life was about to begin, a
real life. But there was always
some obstacle in the way. At
last it dawned on me that
these obstacles were my life.
This perspective has helped
me to see that there’s no way
to happiness. Happiness is
the way.
Souza
Every “anxiety disorder” begins as a solution, that becomes a problem. When we recognize that overcontrol and avoidance of our emotions is driving our struggle, we can begin to find freedom. Acceptance is an act of compassion for ourselves.
If we hope to have good relationships, we must be willing & able to see the world through the eyes of the other person at times, to feel what it might feel like to be them at times, + then to not run away—take a step forward, even—when what we see is hard to hold.
It is not the fact that we have pain that causes us to suffer. In fact, it is the elaborate and compulsive ways in which we avoid, reject, and turn away from our pain that makes us suffer.