The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audioderma.org.

Here we go.

Great.

Okay.

Hello again and welcome to Happy Hour everyone.

Wherever in the world you are joining, whatever this time zone might be.

So, so for today's theme, I wanted to invite us to practice with self kindness, self.

Yeah, self appreciation in a way, not in a selfish way, but in a way of, you know,

we're often looking outside for saking ourselves or for others perhaps and sometimes

the perhaps in romantic relationships, we're looking for the other for the other to make us happy.

Not everyone, but romantic love tends to be idealized quite a bit as the answer to all the suffering

and all the issues and problems and sadness is in our culture and many cultures.

So, there is a beautiful poem that a friend of mine shared with me yesterday and it took my breath away.

It's such a beautiful poem, so I wanted to share the poem with you.

And yeah, maybe I'll share it at the beginning and then also share it when we're meditating together.

So, the poem is by a celebrated author and poet whose name is Maggie Smith.

And the name of the poem is is bride, bride, B-R-I-D-E.

And you are welcome to either make it gender-neutral for yourself or get in touch with your femininity.

We all have aspects of both feminine masculine and so see how we can work for you.

But really the idea of the poem is embracing, embracing love and care for ourselves.

So, here we go.

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