Actions Shape Thoughts

“We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice.”

Sogyal Rinpoche



Nothing is as discouraging as feeling you don’t have a choice–that you’re trapped in a situation you can’t change, with a person who won’t change, or with feelings about yourself that you’ve stopped believing you can change.
We’ve all been there before.

We’ve accepted thankless jobs just to make ends meet. We’ve hurt or watched friends hurting, feeling powerless to end the pain. We’ve waited for love, or mourned unrequited love, or wondered if it was really better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

We’ve all felt helpless before, and we’ll all be there at some point again–yet we have far more power than we think.

We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can shape them with our actions.
We can’t always save the people around us, but we can soothe them with our words.
We can’t always create a world that feels safe, but we can choose how to experience it with our thoughts.

Every day we have limitless choices–thousands of mini-opportunities to live a peaceful, empowered life.