Living with Your Heart Wide Open : How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You From Unworthiness, Inadequacy, and Shame

Foreword by Tara Brach The way we talk to ourselves is often unkind and filled with self-judgments. These overly harsh self-criticisms can make us feel unworthy and incomplete. What if what you really need is not higher standards for yourself, but greater self-compassion? In **Living with Your Heart Wide Open**, you’ll discover how mindfulness and self-compassion can free you from the thoughts and beliefs that create feelings of inadequacy and learn to open your heart to the loving-kindness within you and in the world around you. Based in Western psychotherapy and Buddhist psychological principles, this book guides you past painful and self-limiting beliefs about yourself and toward a new perspective of nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of who you are, just as you are. You’ll receive gentle guidance in mindfulness and compassion practices that will lead you away from unproductive, self-critical thoughts and help you live more freely and fearlessly, with your heart wide open. Do you save your harshest judgments for yourself? The way we talk to ourselves is often unkind and filled with self-judgments. These overly harsh self-criticisms can make us feel unworthy and incomplete. What if what you really need is not higher standards for yourself, but greater self-compassion? In Living with Your Heart Wide Open, you'll discover how mindfulness and self-compassion can free you from the thoughts and beliefs that create feelings of inadequacy and learn to open your heart to the loving-kindness within you and in the world around you. Based in Western psychotherapy and Buddhist psychological principles, this book guides you past painful and self-limiting beliefs about yourself and toward a new perspective of nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of who you are, just as you are. You'll receive gentle guidance in mindfulness and compassion practices that will lead you away from unproductive, self-critical thoughts and help you live more freely and fearlessly, with your heart wide open. The fiction of me -- Choosing how you look at things -- Creating a mindfulness practice -- Looking behind the curtain of self -- Opening to self-compassion -- Opening to loving-kindness -- Becoming real -- Awakening to wisdom and compassion -- Resources.;"Based in Western psychotherapy and Buddhist psychological principles, this book guides you past painful and self-limiting beliefs about yourself and toward a new perspective of nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of who you are"--Publisher description.