Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere only makes our hearts more tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the middle, compassion arises spontaneously. By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what’s happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

Pema Chödron

from the book The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Further quotes from the book The Places That Scare You:

• At least until you die
• Everyday uncertainty
• The anxiety of opening
• Being inspired by everyday good fortune
• The first mark of existence
• Forgive into freshness
• Compassion takes courage
• A flexible identity
• Threefold purity
• Our true nature and condition
• Awakening our unlimited potential
• Happiness
• Dissolving our self-importance
• Cultivating equanimity
• The essence of generosity
• Cultivating equanimity
• Doing all with one intention
• Stay!
• Whatever we encounter
• Dissolving our fear