Even if we don’t like someone, seeing their vulnerability allows us to open our heart to them.

Close relationships give rise to my most intense reactivity as well as to cherished experiences of connectedness.

Saying yes does not mean approving of angry thoughts or sinking into any of our feelings. We are not saying yes to acting on our harmful impulses. Nor are we saying yes to external circumstances that can hurt us:

The trance of unworthiness doesn’t always show up as overt feelings of shame and deficiency. When I told a good friend that I was writing about unworthiness and how pervasive it is, she took issue. “My main challenge isn’t shame, it’s pride,” she insisted.

Many people have told me that when they finally are able to see how long their life has been imprisoned by self-hatred and shame, they feel not only grief but also a sense of life-giving hope.

Our enjoyment is tainted by anxiety about keeping what we have and our compulsion to reach out and get more.

Ajahn Buddhadasa calls these interludes of natural or purposeful pausing “temporary nirvana.” We touch the freedom that is possible in any moment when we are not grasping after our experience or resisting it. He writes that

The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being “without anxiety about imperfection.”

Radical Acceptance enables us to return to the root or origin of who we are, to the source of our being. When we are unconditionally kind and present, we directly dissolve the trance of unworthiness and separation.