Lifelong guidance for learning to change the way we relate to the scary and difficult moments of our lives, showing us how we can use all of our difficulties and fears as a way to soften our hearts and open us to greater kindness. We always have a choice in how we react to the circumstances of our lives. This is the heart of renowned Buddhist nun Pema Chodron's teachings and the essential message of her book The Places That Scare You . We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and allow our inherent human kindness to shine through. Here Pema provides essential tools for dealing with the many difficulties that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available to us, she teaches, but we usually block it with our habitual patterns of fear and apprehension. This book shows how to awaken our basic human goodness and to connect deeply with others, to accept ourselves and everything around us complete with faults and imperfections. It shows us the strength that comes from staying in touch with what's happening in our lives right now, and it helps us unmask the ways in which our ego causes us to resist life as it is.

If we go to the places that scare us, Pema suggests, we just might find the boundless life we've always dreamed of.