Following on from this post, I was reflecting on the following quote this week:
“… Change always is precious, comes slowly, and has a high cost. It can give the appearance of having occurred at one breathless juncture, but on the way to every peak moment are plateau stretches where it will seem to us that we work without any return on our labour. Those stretches make possible the specific occasions we can pinpoint as places of change.
So often the resolve to do better meets with consistent failure. The outcome is discouragement. We despair we can ever be different, and may grow to dislike ourselves. Actually our broken resolves offer material germane to meditation…
Acceptance leads to understanding, and understanding leads to change … Meditation on our responses to persons and events can be a powerful tool in our striving to be free persons … The practice of meditation can give us a feeling of separation from what we are observing in ourselves. The gate is then opened for the comprehending that transforms feelings, or that takes them and returns them to us as manageable forces…”
Elizabeth O’Connor
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