I’ve known many people who have spent years exercising daily, getting massages, doing yoga, faithfully following one food or vitamin regimen after another, pursuing spiritual teachers and different styles of meditation, all in the name of taking care of themselves. Then something bad happens to them and all those years don’t seem to have added up to the inner strength and kindness for themselves that they need to relate with what’s happening. And they don’t add up to being able to help other people or the environment. When taking care of ourselves is all about me, it never gets at the unshakable tenderness and confidence that we’ll need when everything falls apart.

Pema Chödron

from the book Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Pema Chödron.

Further quotes from the book Taking the Leap:

• Realizing that we are never alone
• The path of pausing
• Admiting all experiences
• Unconditional openness
• Getting unstuck
• Learning to accept the present moment
• Here, Now, Always
• Lean In
• Openness is like the wind
• Letting natural openness come to us
• A reservoir of courage