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“How long will you think about this painful life?
How long will you think about this harmful world?
The only thing it can take from you is your body.
Don’t say all this rubbish and stop thinking.”
~Rumi

Have you noticed that an unexamined mind is a self-centered mind? If you’re unaware of  the thoughts you’re thinking, you will automatically believe them to be true—and there you are, fully engaged in the story of me, me, me.

Without realizing it, you’re constantly thinking about what you need, what you want, and what you should or shouldn’t be doing or feeling.

The “I” that you define yourself as is the reference point for everything, and all your thoughts are about your personal agenda.

• Am I okay?
• Am I getting what I need?
• Am I doing the right thing?
• Am I safe?
• I want more.
• I think he shouldn’t have said that.
• In my opinion, she should be doing it differently.
• It’s his fault, not mine.

Not only is this inner self-talk exhausting, it creates an agitated, unhappy mind.

If you identify with all that the mind is saying and it becomes the sole focus of your attention, how do you feel? Agitated and unhappy.

Let’s consider what might be possible beyond the habit of this self-focused thinking. Instead of engaging with a mind filled to the brim with personal thoughts of fear and dissatisfaction, consider the radical proposition of being empty.

What if you were empty of these personal thoughts? How? Take them in a big heap and put them aside…because they’re not serving your peace and happiness.

And what remains? You’re here…pure, pristine, and empty, with a mind infinitely open like the sky. Completely relaxed…breath breathing itself…

You might think you need a personal self with all of its preferences and opinions. But here’s the truth: you don’t.

Life goes along just fine whether or not the mind is chattering. And when you’re empty of the personal self, your experience will be so much more peaceful.

But don’t take my word for it. Find out in your own experience. Next time you’re lost in suffering, realize how much your attention is feeding the story of me…me…me. Subtract the “me” and all that goes with it…and you’re one with the seamless flow of life.

Become familiar with the story of the separate self and how it wends its way into your mind and body. Then empty it out. Pour out the personal needs and strategies that aren’t serving. Throw away the needless opinions, demands, and expectations.

Then experience yourself as fully here, deeply quiet, and available to life’s unfolding…

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“When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love.”
~Nisargadatta Maharaj

I once sat with a friend and watched with deep respect and a full heart as she realized how a pattern from her childhood had been holding her back.

She became fully aware of the inner critical voice that had plagued her for decades and saw clearly how this voice was inserted into her thoughts by her childhood experiences.

• Did she want this voice to be in charge? No.
• Did she believe what it said? Not once she became aware of what it was telling her.
• Was she tired of the way it diminished her and sapped her zest for life? Yes!

Right then and there, she decided to cut the cord to her past.

She chose to stop being a victim to the inner critic with its familiar put-downs that kept her stuck. instead, she took the path of not knowing. She happily stepped into herself…fresh and new.

Patterns from Our Childhood

If you examine any recurring emotion or thought pattern that derails your happiness, you will probably be able to trace it back to your childhood.

• A tendency to feel alone and abandoned comes from not getting enough loving attention as a child.
• A tendency to be hyper-responsible about everything comes from being raised in a chaotic home.
• A pattern of not trusting others comes from a lack of emotional or physical safety in childhood.

Patterns like these are conditioned, having developed as a way to cope with challenging circumstances. They feel like they define us, but they are actually false stories we’ve come to believe about ourselves.

What’s amazing is that there is another possibility…freedom in your life as it is right now. With love, care, and focused attention, we can shed these conditioned patterns so our natural, unconditioned, shining self is revealed. We’re finally free to feel good about ourselves.

Finding Freedom

There’s no substitute for being conscious in our lives, and that’s what it takes for our patterns to soften their hold on us.

Turn your attention inward so you can know with great precision how your patterns show up. When you are caught in them,

• How do you feel?
• What thoughts have taken over?
• What triggers them?

Know that these limiting patterns don’t in any way accurately define the truth of who you are.

This deeply held programming from our past grabs tightly, so be patient with the process to loosen its grip. Notice the patterns over and over, bow to them from your heart for their intention to help you, then step aside into freedom.

Eventually the insight dawns that the pull to leave your conditioning is stronger than the fear not to. This is truth illuminated, the golden moment that sets you free.

Every time the pattern appears, feel it with understanding and love. Then stand in liberation from it—unburdened, fully open, and unapologetically alive.

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“I can’t do it,” “I’m too damaged,” “I’ll fail,” “I’m a loser.”

Do you believe self-defeating thoughts like these that tell you something is wrong with you?

Do you feel inadequate, broken, or unlovable?

These painful thoughts and feelings become your reality, leading to hidden shame, struggles in relationships, and a life not fully lived.

But what if these thoughts don’t accurately describe you?

What if every single thought you think about yourself and everyone else isn’t absolutely true?

Consider the negative thoughts, the self-sabotaging ones, the ones that leave you empty and downtrodden…the very familiar thoughts that seem so real to you.

What if they just aren’t true?

These harsh and limiting ways of defining ourselves are the result of conclusions we drew about ourselves when we were young. This is how a child’s mind works:

• Your mother criticizes you? You conclude you’re unworthy.
• Your father neglects to give you love and attention? You conclude you’re unlovable.
• You’re made to feel unimportant? You conclude you don’t matter.

From a young age, our personal identities take shape. We mistakenly believe we’re limited, inadequate, and doomed to suffer, and carry these self-definitions throughout our lives and into adulthood. And the ripple effects are far-reaching.

But thoughts don’t have to define our reality. Prior to all of thoughts, prior to any experiences or history or interactions, who are you?

Take off all the masks you wear…shed the ideas that cling to you, and what remains?

Here you are…undeniably present…fresh and open…infinitely expansive…overflowing with life-giving potential. You’re innocent and free.

You begin to notice that beliefs you hold about yourself come and go. That’s why they can’t be trusted to tell the truth about who you are. And you come to know that you’re much happier without them.

Lose interest in these long-held beliefs telling you you’re not good enough every time they arise. Don’t think them or reinforce them with your attention.

And what do you notice? The ever-present aliveness of your true nature that is already whole, peaceful, and primed for joy.

Like a miracle, you find the amazing possibility of being liberated from outdated stories that have suppressed your light. And your everyday life expands into this newfound freedom in delightful and surprising ways.

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The post You Are Not Inadequate appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

I was speaking to a friend recently who is often caught in a mindset of lack. His mind seems to love reciting all the things that are missing from his life, especially a romantic relationship.
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But this time something different happened. Instead of being taken down this sad and lonely road of feeling sorry for himself, an enlightening phrase appeared: “Wait a minute!”

“Wait a minute.” It was a reset that woke him out of the dream of lack and brought him into the reality of the present moment.

Then he began to question:

• What is here and present?
• Is everything okay right now?
• Do I have to wait for a partner to do the things I want to do?

It was a spontaneous offering of the universal intelligence that lives in all of us showing him the way to freedom.

Accessing the Inner Coach

For a while on my journey, the phrase that arose was, “Go in.” To me, that meant to let go of the thinking in my head and bring my attention down into the body to welcome sensations. Then I went further, sitting with great peace, just being the space of open awareness.

Reminding myself to, “Go in,” short-circuited the swirling thoughts every time, and eventually I no longer paid much attention to them.

Someone else I know says, “Go back.” This phrase guides her to let her attention fall away from the outer world of people and situations—and the world of her own thoughts and feelings. She stops feeding her anxiety and trying to figure out what others need.

She comes back to herself…to the infinite space behind her eyes…to the sensations of the breath…to being grounded in the reality of this present moment, open to all that is…

Guidance for Discovering Your True Nature

These phrases are a sign that the inner coach is alive and well. It’s the voice in us that knows what serves our peace and happiness—which is not the limiting thoughts of the personal sense of “I.”

The inner coach beckons us to come home to our true nature. It brings us into our inner world to explore with curiosity and discover our natural aliveness…pure, innocent, free of stress…

The inner coach opens possibilities we couldn’t see before. Another friend was stuck in a compelling, fear-based thought pattern. All she could see were scary outcomes with no satisfying solution.

Then, “Hey, wait!” appeared. She took some moments in stillness, and then became aware of a number of practical solutions to the problem she was wrestling with, and the fear disappeared.

Programmed habits often hold on tightly because they’re highly reinforced. We’ve been thinking the same thoughts and taking the same actions for a very long time. Which is why we need skillful means to awaken out of them.

The inner coach is one ally in this process.

Take the time to slow down…and notice the intelligence of the inner coach. Is there a quiet voice inside drawing you out of repetitive patterns…guiding you to freedom? Can you follow it—with your whole heart—as you find your way home?
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If you look into the heart of fear, what do you find? Nothing.

Fear: it’s a word, a set of letters that we agree has a certain meaning. It’s a label for physical agitation in the body and a way of thinking that distorts things to look negative, pessimistic, and hopeless.

But what is it really? Nothing more than a belief, something we take to be true, an unquestioned emotion that separates us from life.

Here’s an important truth about fear: it is absolutely possible to live in this world without being driven by it. That’s how you become available to openness, potential, and inspiration.

Not that you need to get rid of fear. Fear can arise—it’s a normal experience in the human body—but when you see what it actually is, it loses its power over you.

Like sand sifting through your fingers, there’s nothing to hold onto…and, like a miracle, you discover you’re free…

The Power of Fear

Fear creates all kinds of trouble when we believe its stories. We’re afraid of being alone, of not having enough money, of being vulnerable with people, of failing (or succeeding), of stepping outside of our comfort zone, of death.

It’s at the root of procrastination, addiction, compulsive behavior, inadequacy, shame, and envy. Not to mention racism, hate, wars, and violence of all kinds.

Take a look at our world today, and you’ll see the division that fear creates. When we live in fear, our view of ourselves and the world constricts, and we overlook the actual reality of who we are.

You are not the fearful, limited being hiding from life that you think you are, although you may be a master at playing that role.

When fear falls away, you know yourself as luminous…already fulfilled…naturally loving…effortlessly overflowing… This is you in this very moment—behind the mask of fear!

How to know this truth? Question fear. Go right into the direct experience of it so you can know what it is and how it affects you. Then you’re poised to step away from its false stories and into the reality of your full aliveness.

We call fear an emotion, and all emotions are made up of two things: a story in our minds about what’s happening and physical sensations. Let’s explore the truth about fear.

Inquiry: The Stories of Fear

Notice that the content of fearful thoughts is negative and limiting. They are pure imagination, which means they make up stories: imagining that something bad will happen in the future—when you have no idea what will happen, imagining that you’re perceiving a person or situation correctly—when you don’t actually know.

And how does the fear mind guide us? It says, “No” to possibilities outside your comfort zone, pointing to all the things that could go wrong.

New Options: Fearful thoughts expect the worst. Realize that they’re not true and that you have the choice to not believe them. After all, why would you believe a thought that isn’t true?

Instead, say, “I don’t know what will happen.” Or, from a loving heart ask, “What is the reality of this situation?”

Believing the limiting stories of fear might have served at some point in your life, but are they still needed? If you turn attention away from the fog of the fear-fueled mind, you immediately expand into your present moment experience…now available to insight, compassion, and clear seeing.

Inquiry: The Body in Fear

Lose interest in the fear stories in the mind, and what are you aware of? Physical sensations.

Notice how much the experience of fear is physical. Bring your attention into the body, and open to sensations—vibration, flutter, tightening, contraction, nausea, anxious energy.

Get curious about the physical expression of fear. If you’ve been stuck in the stories for a long time, you may have never noticed it before!

New Options: Allow the experience of sensations to be present. Without adding any thoughts about them, notice they’re just energy coming and going through you, like clouds floating across the sky.

You’re simply here, present with sensations arising with no judgment, no preference, and no story. Where’s the problem now?

This is how we untangle fear. We see it for what it actually is: physical sensations and a limiting, mind-created story. Now that you’re aware of the reality of fear, does it need to overpower you and your life?

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Fear may have been your faithful companion, but know this: it is not who you are.

Focusing on fear agitates our systems and overlooks the intelligence of our present moment experience. Once we get out of our minds, we open into expanded possibilities infused with aliveness and love.

The feeling of separation from ourselves and the world falls away…and we find ourselves fully available to life as it is.

The post The Truth About Fear appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

“ Life is totally taking care of everything.
Who I am, who everyone is—is life.
We can all relax, and let life do all the work.”
~ Pamela Wilson

A simple phrase can change everything. Get ready, because it may radically alter your everyday perspective on all that arises.

Here it is: “Oh, this.”

When does “Oh, this” come into play? Whatever happens, whatever appears, the most simple and intelligent response is, “Oh, this.”

It means we’re available to what is with openness in our minds and hearts, accepting everything in a warm embrace…without preference. “Oh, this” aligns our whole being with how consciousness is always meeting all experience…fully allowing everything to be as it is.

Say “Oh, this” to:

• Whatever is happening now
• Events from the past
• Things people say and do
• Your own emotional reactions

A friend recently told me this has been one of the most helpful practices along her path. And maybe it will help you, too.

By saying, “Oh, this,” we’re not being passive or resigned. We’re not gritting our teeth and putting up with things or just getting through.

We don’t have to grin and bear it. And we certainly can act appropriately as needed.

“Oh, this” simply says ‘Yes!” to what is. It’s a revolutionary shift that transforms our whole way of being.

Let’s explore the opposite, “Oh, not this,” and how that reaction resists reality:

• I don’t want you to be saying that.
• I don’t want you to want that.
• I don’t want this to be happening.
• That shouldn’t have happened.
• I don’t want to feel the way I feel.

These statements all communicate a resistance to what is. We want others to want what we want them to want. We want to revise history or write the script for what should happen now and in the future.

And how much pain does resisting bring to your life?

If we’re caught up in a flurry of fears and reactions, we’re not thinking clearly. If we’re pushing ahead to get our way, we’re in your heads, closing down to what is and overlooking possibilities for wise responding.

But shifting to “Oh, this” aligns us with what’s here as we relax in the face of life’s challenges. This space of acceptance creates the possibility for intelligent, fresh, and heartfelt responses to arise.

The phrase, “Oh, this,” is the perfectly-wrapped gift that we give to ourselves—and everyone else. And it’s a gift that keeps on giving because it keeps grounding us in our present moment experience.

And here…right now…is where we discover breath, life, and intimacy with all that is…

Why not try it?

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“Watching the moon at dawn,

solitary, mid-sky,

I knew myself completely,

no part left out.”
~Izumi Shikibu, 1st century Zen poet

As many of you know, I’m fascinated by the topic of trauma, especially the kind that 
happens early in our lives…the kind that lays down patterns in our minds, bodies, and behavior that we find hard to resolve. 



And who doesn’t have those patterns? Parents do their best, but no upbringing is perfect. We may not have experienced obvious abuse, but we all have something in us that we learned in our families early on that makes us feel uncomfortable and separate. 



Research shows that the impact of these patterns is profound. They affect our brains and nervous systems during development, and set us up for anxiety, depression, addictions, relationship struggles, and even physical illness. 


Moreover, trauma gets passed down through the generations. For the most part, parents with unresolved trauma can’t help but pass their patterns along to their children.



Can you identify the effects of early trauma in you now? Then you are far from alone. Your parents probably had unresolved trauma in their own experience, and their parents, and so on…



It’s a legacy of suffering that continues—until we illuminate it with intelligence, compassion, and truth. 

This is why I’m so excited that trauma is coming more and more out into the open. You can learn about it, study it, and ultimately take the actions to incline yourself toward the healing of it. 



And if you’re wondering what healing trauma has to do with awakening consciousness, consider this. 



Awakening is the end of the belief in the separate self. When this belief falls away, everything that lies hidden in you that keeps you feeling disconnected from life comes into the light of loving aware presence, including these subtle early patterns. 



Bring this light deeply into the patterns of early trauma, and you’ll discover the root of the feeling of separation—a sense of lack or incompleteness. Experience this feeling in the body—without the story—and you’ll discover there’s nothing real about it whatsoever.
 
Becoming aware of how early trauma lives in you takes willingness and courage, as you will probably be leaning into scary places you haven’t touched before.

For me, this journey has been fueled by the fire of, “No more!” No more suffering, no more cycling around in the same old patterns that have held me back from the full expression of who I am. 



As we get more intimate with the subtleties of these patterns, they’ll start to soften, layer by layer. Stay with it, and there’s more and more space for the light of your true nature to shine through brilliantly.
 
We’re loving, whole, and resilient at the core. We can do this work. 
 
In my experience, these patterns don’t completely disappear, but they relax tremendously. The pain of the 5-year-old in me still shows up sometimes. It’s an ongoing process to notice the reaction quickly, take a few breaths if needed to calm the nervous system, hold the pain with huge compassion, then return to the knowing of awakened consciousness. 

The pain can visit, but it doesn’t take over my experience anymore. I get on with the enjoyment of life in the moment. This is what’s possible for all of us. 



How to begin? Carefully, with curiosity and care, fueled by the the desire to be free.

 Then love what you experience with all your heart.

• Breathe with the feelings that rise up;
• Bring compassion to the stories—and admit that they just don’t fit anymore;
• Understand that the patterns were an intelligent response to difficult situations that came about to protect you;
• Know that you’re moving beyond blame and into freedom.

Adopt a lifestyle focused on your healing that leaves time to slow down and connect with the sacred nature of all things. Don’t hesitate to get support from others, maybe professionals, as you need it. Above all, be infinitely kind toward yourself.
 
Healing early trauma creates space for something fresh, new, and unknown. Who are you without the old stories? Look what’s here outside of them, and you’ll discover inspiration, creativity, wonder, your unique gifts, and the simple joy of being alive right now.



This healing path is available for you if you choose it. Follow it and it reveals endless intimacy with all of life…

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“In my experience, we don’t make thoughts appear, they just appear. One day, I noticed that their appearance just wasn’t personal.”
~Byron Katie

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I used to live in a world of “if only.” If only the right partner would show up or I wouldn’t get caught in traffic or my family life would improve. It was a self-centered life—and so frustrating!

If only things would be the way I wanted them to be, then I would be happy. It was all about me, me, me.

Yes, I was able to enjoy myself at times, but I was attached to all kinds of outcomes, big and small, and I suffered for it. Every time I wanted something to happen in a certain way, I set myself up for frustration, stress, and disappointment.

I was tired of the pain, but couldn’t figure out a way through it.

Joyfully Opening to What Is

Fast forward to now, and I can’t help but smile. I’ve discovered the peace I was longing for right here and now by deeply accepting things as they are.

Amazingly, this peace was always available. I was just too busy wanting things to be different to realize it, and I never thought to question these desires.

Do you react to life with a big “No?” Do you want it your way, not the way it actually is? Is Now not good enough? Then you are suffering. I know because I’ve been there.

How to find your way out of this trap? With inquiry and understanding. Look within to understand how your personal desires bring about suffering. Feel into the frustration and disappointment.

Then reflect on what it would be like to open to things as they are—not as you want them to be. You’ll discover that the “Yes!” to life is the only sane and peaceful way to be.

From Closing to Opening

Every desire contains within it a seed of resistance to what is. You think the present moment is missing something, while your mind says, “if only things were different.”

But each desire also holds the possibility of freedom. Consider these examples.

Hope

Hope is about wanting a better moment at some time in the future. It’s a story created by the mind, filled with thoughts about how your current situation is lacking.

Hope leaves you waiting, not living. And your experience right now? Unhappy and dissatisfied.

New possibility:

Expand beyond the confining view of hope for a better future, and you’ll discover new possibilities available right now.

• Can you give turn away from the mind’s story of hope and breathe..just being present?
• Can you say “Yes” to things as they are, even if your mind tells you it doesn’t like them?
• Can you become aware of simply being okay in the here and now?

Expectations

An expectation desires a specific outcome while closing to the possibility of all other outcomes.

You feel frustrated if you don’t get what you want and end up resisting what does happen. It’s like you’re bumping into the “No!” to life everywhere you turn.

New possibility:

Expand beyond expecting one specific thing. Instead, stay present and open to the possibility of all things.

• Can you let go of trying to control life?
• Can you open in your heart and body rather than being constricted by your thoughts?
• Can you lovingly receive what occurs?

Now you’re available to the freedom that’s already here…when you’re not in your head driven by expectations.

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Feel into how your desires constrict your reality. Can you find the “if only…” story?  If only something were different, if only you got what you wanted, then you would be happy or peaceful or content.

Want to be happy, peaceful, or content now? Then stop believing the thoughts that tell you that you don’t have what you need. Come home to the felt reality of the present moment, and open fully…this breath…these sensations…and deep acceptance of all that is…

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Are you a complainer? Are you constantly fretting about your problems and trying to fix what you think is broken?

Are you in your head believing thoughts that judge, compare, and project fear everywhere?

What I’ve noticed is that the unexamined mind is full of negative thinking. When we’re not awake to what our minds are actually saying, it drones on with words that bring us down, put us on edge, and separate us from peace.

But don’t take my word for it. Turn toward your own mind and notice the stories it repeats. How do these stories affect you?

I’m not at all anti-mind. The human mind is amazing in its expression of creativity and its ability to help us navigate practical aspects of our lives.

But when we step back from thinking and open to all of our present moment experience, we find that when we’re tied up in sticky and negative thought patterns, it just doesn’t feel good. And there’s a lot we’re overlooking about what’s here in the present moment.

For many of us, the negative content in our minds is compelling. Some stories are dramatic and emotional, and all of them are so familiar we don’t realize we’re lost in them.

I used to live in these negative thoughts. If you had stopped me in any moment and asked me how I was doing, I would immediately tell you what was wrong with the situations and people in my life. I was definitely a complainer.

Over time, I put the pieces together to help me understand why I felt so badly. And I was surprised to discover that these stressful thoughts had become my reality. With this new insight, I began to give them less attention and explore my actual present moment experience beyond them.

I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing—wonder, amazement, peace, stillness, the quiet reality of appreciating life as it is—and so much love. These experiences had always been available…they were simply clouded over by believing thoughts.

Complaining, criticizing, and judging thoughts will flourish if you feed them with your attention—and they’ll seem undeniably true.

It’s freeing to realize that there are always options:

• Bring to mind something you often complain about. How can you hold it differently, with clarity and compassion?
• Think of someone you judge (maybe yourself?). What’s an alternative, loving response?
• See any moment as it is and not through the filters of thinking.

Keep letting your heart guide you out of fear and separation. You just might discover the peace you’ve been longing for your whole life.

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“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.”
~Brené Brown

Shame. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling. So uncomfortable that you may not even want to read this article. You think that if you leave it hidden in the shadows, outside of conscious awareness, maybe, just maybe, you can pretend it’s not there.

But it is. And for some of us, it’s dug in deep.

If shame stays where it is, unseen and unexplored, it will continue to affect you. How? It’s behind the self-critical voice in your head, unsatisfying dynamics in relationships, feelings of lack and unworthiness, and choices that keep you from fully living.

Shame feels so personal! It’s a painful feeling of humiliation—that you’ve done something wrong or that there’s something disgraceful or embarrassing about you. It’s the secret emotion that sits in you like a poison.

And the last thing you want to do is bring it out in the open. You think that if you do, you’ll get stuck in your worst fears about yourself.

But here’s the possibility for you—the light that can begin to untangle shame: if you navigate shame with wisdom and heart, you find tenderness, compassion, courageous vulnerability, and the relief that comes from no longer hiding from yourself—or keeping yourself hidden from others and the world.

You move from feeling separate and shut down to being much more at ease with yourself. The boundaries that disconnect you from everyone and everything begin to fall away. Almost like being born anew, you are open, light, and available to life.

You can make the choice to let your pain rule you by keeping it in the shadows. Or you can befriend, explore, and welcome it into the light of conscious awareness. How? Here are 10 potentially life-changing ways to move through shame.

Getting to Know Shame

1. Be a courageous explorer

If you’re just beginning to explore shame, you’re going into foreign territory. Just like the ancient adventurers who took to the sea not knowing what they would find, be courageous, curious, and open.

Practice: Set the stage for your exploration of shame. Bring your attention inside, and touch into the qualities of curiosity, openness, and especially compassion that are natural to who you are. Find them, then let yourself feel them deeply.

2. Find the gap

You might be very used to feeling shame, but you may not know it well. In fact, you may have been trying to avoid it at all costs because it’s so painful.

But here we take a different approach by befriending our experience. What is shame exactly? How does it feel? How does it appear in your thoughts about the past and yourself?

Answering these questions invites you to find the gap between you and shame, and it’s the gap that begins to set you free.

Now you’re relating to shame in a new way. You can study it, inquire about it, and see what it is—this feeling that’s had such an impact on you.

Practice: Imagine you’re studying an object you’ve never seen before to figure out what it is and what it does. You’ll find a gap between you and shame. Observe your experience of shame and be curious about what you notice.

3. What’s the story?

Shame doesn’t appear from nowhere. It’s a form of conditioning that lives in your mind, heart, body, and spirit. Maybe you were somehow made to feel ashamed of yourself when you were young—ashamed of who you are, your capabilities, your body.

There’s probably a story of shame that you’ve carried for a long time, but here’s the good news: it’s actually an identity that is optional. Start to consider that this shame story doesn’t have to define you. Get ready to say goodbye to it.

Remember that who you are is not this story. Your essence is whole, inherently peaceful, and boundlessly free.

Practice: Stand up and feel yourself in that familiar story of shame. Just try it. Now, take a big step to one side and leave the story behind. Feel yourself without the story. How does it feel?

4. How does shame live in your body?

Every emotion has a physical component to it. Getting to know shame includes knowing how it lives in your body.

It may take some time to discover the physical experience of shame because it’s become so familiar to you. Get quiet and bring your attention to your body. Then notice any physical sensations, places of numbness, and energies. Whatever you find is just right.

You’re opening to what has been here anyway by making friends with the way shame shows up in your body.

When you realize you don’t need to live the story of shame and you become aware of body sensations, the heaviness of this identity begins to soften. It’s the road to freedom.

Practice: As much as possible, even a hundred times a day, bring your attention into your body and just be the loving space for whatever you notice.

Going Deeper

5. How you speak to yourself

Our inner self-talk can be so painfully harsh. And if you look at the root of what drives it, you’ll find shame, the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong with you.

Once you begin meeting the shame directly—by not being so captured by the story and feeling the physical sensations—this inner bully starts to not even make sense anymore.

Let’s tell the truth. Are you actually that incompetent, inadequate so-and-so you think you are? If you look at these inner statements with the objective eyes of a scientist, you’ll be able to punch holes in them immediately. You’re so much greater than these false limits.

Commit to recognizing this voice and letting its reign over you diminish.

Practice: This inner voice is unkind and doesn’t serve your peace and happiness. Turn your attention away from these self-critical thoughts and let them float on by like clouds. Be the sky—vast, empty, and serene. Start to live here as much as possible and the critical thoughts begin to lose their power.

6. Know how and why you isolate

Living with shame is lonely and isolating. It makes you believe that no one would want to get close to you, which justifies you pushing them away. You assume you’ll be rejected.

Recognizing the urge to isolate is essential to moving through shame. Because it’s a sign that your shame identity has taken charge. When you find yourself assuming what others think about you, this is your golden moment to let your thoughts be.

Practice: Shift your attention into your body, and breathe with great compassion for all that you are. You’re beginning to form a new, healthy relationship—with yourself. And this makes you more available, authentic, and courageously vulnerable. Others will love you for it.

7. Is there fear there?

Shame and fear often go hand in hand. You’re afraid of being seen for who you are. And at the same time, you fear being alone. You’re afraid you’re damaged goods, doomed to a life of misery.

As you get to know shame, become aware of various fears that may be lurking. Bring fear, too, out of the shadows and meet it lovingly.

Practice: Check to see if fear is present. Let down your resistance and allow it in, especially how it appears in your body. Like a long-lost child returning home, embrace the fear, but don’t let its story control you.

Moving Forward

8. Find the strength in being vulnerable

Vulnerability gets a bad rap these days. But what it actually offers you is the relief from having to hide from yourself, the simplicity of just being as you are without having to change anything.

Whatever you feel right now is your present moment experience. Resisting it creates endless suffering, and welcoming it in is the path to inner peace. This is the medicine for the secret of shame.

Be as you are. Not in the story of who you think you are that is denigrating and destructive—you’ve lived there long enough. Instead, shift your attention away from these thoughts, and allow your current experience as it is. These sensations…this breath…touching…hearing…looking…speaking…

It’s so relaxing because you don’t have to hide or hope. You can just be.

Practice: Begin to get comfortable being with whatever you are experiencing in any given moment. Be like the sky with clouds coming and going.

9. Sacred honesty—with yourself

When you live in shame, you’re constantly lying to yourself. You draw yourself into a trance that makes you believe you’re inadequate, unworthy, and just plain wrong. The truth? It’s inaccurate.

Healing from shame invites radical honesty. Are you up for it?

Whenever you’re feeling separate and lacking, question your experience. Find the gap (#2 above), and recognize the thoughts and feelings in your body that have taken hold.

Then realize that who you are is so much more than this identity. You are whole, unbroken, and infinitely at peace. Keep returning here. Become more and more transparent so the light of truth shines through.

Practice: Investigate your direct experience with a discerning eye to see what is true and what is false. Live in the truth of yourself as whole, full, pure, and resilient.

10. Wide open heart

Shame is all about limitation, holding back, and keeping yourself separate and isolated. And where is your heart? Wounded, stuck, and closed.

Begin to open into your loving nature. Move your attention away from your head to notice the beauty and tenderness around you. It’s been here all along, you just haven’t noticed. Let yourself be alive in the simple experiences of daily life. So precious!

Practice: Expand into gratitude, wonder, and intimacy with your experience. Instead of being absorbed in shame, meet everyone and everything with fresh eyes. When you notice that you are closed, open…open…open…

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“Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down
in always widening rings of being.”
~Rumi

Here’s a powerful question for you: what are you devoted to?

What we’re devoted to is what we intentionally focus our time, energy, and interest on. We take a stand and go all in. We stay, even when it’s hard.

Take a moment to reflect: what are you devoting your time, energy, and interest to? It’s important to know because what we’re devoted to is what’s alive for us and gives energy to our life’s momentum. It determines how we show up in the moments of our lives.
Pay attention to drama and upset, and what happens? You’ll be ruled by emotions and find relationships unsatisfying.

Pay attention to everything with fresh eyes and an open heart, and your way of being in your life will reflect the sacredness of all.

So what do you really want? Go inward and let the answer reveal itself to you.

If what you really want is release from the prison of separation…if you long to consciously know the freedom that comes by knowing your true nature…then you are being called to devote yourself fully to that.

That’s why we need practice as a way of life. We need to learn how to recognize and meet the familiar habits that so easily overtake us. And we need support to be present and aware in our culture that denies stillness, silence, and the vulnerability that comes with an open heart.

The opportunities to practice are everywhere:

• Deepening in presence to see things as they actually are;
• Questioning any ideas we believe that keep us feeling separate and lacking;
• Staying with our direct experience rather than reinforcing the mind’s commentary.

Eventually, practice as a way of life is pure joy. And the ripple effects are profound.

Slowing down and turning inward at many points during your day becomes non-negotiable—because you know the freedom that’s possible by staying connected to your inner experience.

Feeling triggered in relationship becomes an invitation to deeply explore the feelings and beliefs that keep you stuck—and you take the time for this exploration.

You catch yourself ruminating and take a breath that brings your attention to the spaciousness beyond the mind.

You notice a painful feeling and flood it with a loving embrace.

And you remind yourself to forget thinking altogether and immerse fully in the richness of your present moment experience.

Practice as a way of life brings us into a whole new relationship with our experience. This is a relationship that is loving, attentive, kind, and present. We feel the familiar movement within to hide from ourselves—and from life—and instead turn toward ourselves with openness and curiosity.

How can you bring practice into your life? Love what you love fully and put the power of intention behind it.

• Sit quietly in meditation for five or more minutes each day.
• Set your phone alarm to ring hourly as a signal to slow down and take a conscious breath.
• Take a mind-free walk. Spend some time outside being with what you experience without the mind’s involvement. 
• Before going to sleep, take a short time to write about a trigger so you understand it better. 
• When you’re challenged, take your time to contemplate, “What is the wise and loving response?”
• Bring compassion to the difficult places when they appear.
• Notice naturally arising moments of silence, gratitude, heartfelt connection, uncaused joy, and peace.

Choose a way to practice and make it a way of life…every day. Dedicate your time, energy, and interest wholeheartedly to what you love. Sometimes you won’t want to, and that’s the time to recommit to your deepest desire and keep going.

Because here’s the truth: every moment of practice is infused with sacredness and love. And it matters for the healing of our fractured world.

Keep returning home, over and over, and the moments of your life become a living testament to expanding freedom, grounded wisdom, and peace beyond peace.

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I was recently speaking with someone who was caught in a swirl of emotions. She felt so overwhelmed by the emotional energy that she didn’t know what to do with it.

I guided her to first take a couple of breaths and make space for the waves of emotion coming through her body.

I then invited her to be an open field of awareness that welcomes the intense sensations just as they are.

In a surprisingly short time, she was visibly calmer. Released from the grip of the emotions, she looked out the window. “The colors are so vibrant,” she said softly. “I never noticed that before.”

What happened to bring about this peace? She experienced a moment of grace where the veils of conditioned thinking fell away…revealing the direct experience of true nature shining through.

She was no longer distressed or worried. She wasn’t scrambling to fix or solve anything. Her inner critic was quiet, and she wasn’t thinking about others’ opinions of her. She was simply here…alive…peaceful…in total harmony with her present moment experience.

The truth of who we are is so incredibly close—and I absolutely love that we can discover it! But when we’re clouded by inner judgments, dramatic stories, and fixed ideas about ourselves, it seems like it’s a million miles away.

We’re hidden behind the veils of conditioning that seem so real.

These conditioned patterns have their root in our childhoods. We learn to be fearful and untrusting. We conclude that we’re inadequate, and think we need to please others to get approval. We pressure ourselves into perfection.

And when we live our everyday lives through the veil of these early patterns, we’re bringing the past into the present.

This is old baggage we carry around that may have served us long ago, but now limits our perspective and options in life. It keeps us from feeling liberated, open, and actually present to enjoy our lives.

Take a moment to reflect:

• What veils are you living behind?
• What do you think or feel that keeps you from being free?
• What holds you back from living your full potential?

As humans, our first urge is to get rid of these patterns that mask our light. If they would just go away, then all would be well. But as the saying goes, “What we resist persists.” And resistance is a harsh rejection of the tender parts of ourselves.

We need a different approach: one of openness, welcoming, self-compassion, and care. This is what softens the stuck places in us so there’s more space to live fully now.

And isn’t that what we want—to be inspired, peaceful, and free in our everyday lives? To live without limits?

By staying grounded in our bodies, we create a sense of safety for those parts of us that weren’t safe to feel long ago. We let ourselves be supported by others in this loving process—because we don’t have to go it alone.

And we invite ourselves to reclaim the wholeness of our true nature.

Moment by moment, we cleanse our inner vision so there’s space for the light to shine through.

And the light is here, I promise you, because it’s the essence of who you are beyond all ideas and limitations…your natural self…as the Zen saying says, your original face before you were born.

Then we meet Life—as it is—undefended and open, with nothing in the way. We see people and situations, not from habit, but so fresh like it’s the first time. And we bow down in gratitude for all that’s been given.

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Are you actually here, present in your life, or are you in your head focusing on what needs to change for you to be happy?

If you believe you’re broken and need to be fixed, then you’re waiting for the time in the future when you’ll finally, hopefully, feel comfortable and at ease in your life.

Maybe you’re waiting to become the person you think you should be, or you’re waiting for the right job or relationship. And while you’re waiting, what is your present moment experience? Lack, disappointment, and frustration.

If we’re unaware of what we’re actually thinking, we tend to live in the world of “if only.” If only I hadn’t had a difficult childhood, if only my wife hadn’t left me, if only I weighed 10 pounds less, if only I had more love in my life…

If we think that happiness is somewhere other than where we are, or we think we will find it at some time other than now, we will never be happy.

These ideas delay our happiness, and make it dependent on things we can’t control—the imaginary future or other people’s behavior. And meanwhile, we’ve overlooked the treasures here to be discovered right now.

This human suffering is unnecessary, and it’s optional.

Life is happening now. The past and future aren’t real—they’re mental concepts that only have reality in your mind.

If you’re thinking about the past, you’re doing that now and if you’re hoping for a better future, that’s also happening now. So if you want to be peaceful and at ease, the only time that can happen is now.

This understanding brings our attention out of our heads and right into this moment. Here’s the essential question: are you peaceful—now—or are you steeped in personal problems and a sense of lack?

We all have programmed thought patterns that run through our minds. For the most part, they are negative and limiting, telling us we’re unworthy, too emotional and needy, or destined to be unsuccessful. They make us think we don’t deserve to be happy.

When we think these thoughts describe us accurately, they become our living reality. But there’s something else here to be known that changes everything…

Prior to any thoughts, beyond any judgments or criticisms, we are here in our full aliveness. We are uncontained, limitless, creative by our very nature, and open to everything. This is the true reality that’s available to us outside of our limited thoughts about ourselves.

At any moment, we can let these thoughts float by…like clouds in the sky…then they’re no longer defining us. Without these thoughts in charge, what remains? Who are we?

We realize we’re here and present, available to life with nothing in the way, intelligent, clear, spacious, and fully alive. We get our lives back because we’re no longer defining ourselves by our challenging past or by the scary and negative voices that spin around in our heads.

We see through these identities because they don’t serve our happiness, and we let them be.

We don’t discover peace and happiness by becoming something different than what we are. Instead, it’s a process of subtraction. Subtract what you believe to be true that’s not actually true. Subtract your programmed thought patterns and emotions that don’t serve.

And here you are…already whole…flowing with what’s happening…in love with all…

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As humans, we tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This is a survival mechanism reinforced by the brain that keeps us alert and ready for action. 

Painful emotions? Feelings behind our compulsive behaviors? Thoughts that won’t stop?

We numb ourselves with food, busyness, or the hope that everything will somehow miraculously improve in the future. This is what we call normal human life. 

Maybe avoiding difficult experiences helps us to cope in the short-term, but what I’ve noticed is that we’re still left feeling confused and separate…and wondering why we don’t feel content.

A friend recently asked my perspective on slaying his demons. Whether you want to get rid of demons, pesky thoughts, deeply held emotions, memories from the past, or the ego, I’m afraid slaying just won’t work. 

No matter how desperately you want your experience to be different than it is, the facts will show you what’s true. To say an obvious truth: what is here is your present moment experience.

Wanting to change or eliminate what naturally arises in the precious moments of our lives is mechanical and harsh. It assumes we’re broken and need to be fixed, that there’s something wrong with the thoughts and feelings that are present. 

So something different is needed—a radical departure from the programmed human tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain…a paradigm shift for how we meet the free flow of our experience.

And this is how awakening out of the dream of mind-created separation sets you free. 

Consciousness, the infinite formless Beingness from which all forms arise, is always welcoming everything unconditionally. It doesn’t judge or interpret, so it has no problem with anything that appears.

By its nature, it includes everything as it is. Just as waves dissolve back into the ocean, it sees all forms as temporary arisings that eventually return to their source. All flows like water.

By bringing unconditional, compassionate welcoming to all of your experience, you’re aligning with consciousness which never had resistance to anything.

Consider the human mind that needs to stay vigilant in order to protect you from pain and threat. Then feel into the infinitely relaxed boundless space of awareness that just is…no matter what arises in it.

How does that feel? What do you notice?

It will seem counterintuitive to the mind to welcome pain in order to find peace. So neutralize the mind’s definition of the experience as painful. Just be with what is directly with no interpretation attached. 

Simply be consciousness. Be who you already are. Bring loving acceptance to every reaction, every emotion, every sensation in your body with endless kindness.

Ignore the mind’s chatter about it, and be with the direct experience of all that is. Nothing left out…all included in this unity.

Instead of being a demon slayer, you’re a fierce and gentle warrior for oceans of wisdom and love…

image: from my travels in Chile

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“Love, peace and happiness are inherent in the knowing of our own being. In fact, they are the knowing of being. They are simply other names for our self.”
~Rupert Spira

I was a seeker of happiness for many, many years. I really wanted to be happy, but I was anxious, sometimes depressed, had ongoing struggles in relationships, and just couldn’t figure out how to be at peace.

I kept looking everywhere I could think of—in books, years of therapy, retreats, people, adventurous travels. I would get bits of happiness mostly from exciting life experiences, but I wasn’t at peace inside.

As soon as I was happy for a while, the feeling would wear off, leaving me searching once again. It was a cycle that seemed to have no end—searching, finding, losing it, searching, finding, losing it—but I kept at it.Somehow I knew there had to be a solution. Were we meant to always struggle in life? Was happiness an elusive goal?

I had been attending many retreats with spiritual teachers, and finally I had a light bulb moment.

I realized that I wouldn’t find peace by waiting for it, hoping for it, or by hearing about others’ experiences with it. I needed to do exactly what the teachers were suggesting I do, which was to look within.

I saw how I had sat in these retreats just like a baby bird in a nest, beak outstretched, starving, waiting to be fed that morsel of food that would finally bring me to peace.

I had assumed I didn’t have the peace and happiness I was looking for. And now I know differently.

Thankfully…gratefully…I discovered that sustained happiness is possible.

As I turned inward toward my inner experience, I saw how focusing on familiar thought patterns and consuming emotions kept me from noticing something essential: the sense of just being that is the fundamental reality of every moment.

And with a brightly burning fire to know, I started returning my attention to this beingness, over and over.

Every time I noticed I had moved away and into my thoughts, there it was again…at the heart of the moment…the peace, the relief, the relaxation, the spaciousness that holds everything with complete ease, the undisturbed, ever-present field of being aware.

It was a huge revelation for me. I stopped looking outside myself and into the world for happiness. I was drawn to being quiet, and things slowed down. The harsh edges of the patterns softened. I started enjoying the human experience of my everyday life.

I tell you this story not to give you something you think you don’t have, but to inspire you to turn your attention inward to explore your own experience.

• Get to know where your attention goes that makes you suffer;
• Get to know what thoughts you’re believing that make you think happiness is not for you (hint: what these thoughts are telling you is false);
• Relate to your experience with kindness and curiosity (put down the fight and struggle);
• Question everything you think is true;
• Surrender everything about your personal self to the endless field of stillness and peace.

You’re not going to find lasting peace and happiness out there in the world. And no one can give you what you already are.

Be exhausted by the layers of belief and critical inner voices that overrun you. Look beyond all thought to the true freshness of the moment.

And here you are: whole, unbroken, and infinitely at peace…

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“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
~Walt Whitman

If you’re really honest with yourself, if you go to the deepest place within, I’m guessing that you know the truth: the truth that living from love is possible, that you can be free of whatever holds you back, that fullness, well-being, and contentment are your innate nature.

It seems to be part of the human experience to pretend we don’t know what we know. Maybe we’re afraid to acknowledge and live this knowing. Maybe our thinking pulls us into believing that our lives don’t measure up or we’ve been dealt a bad hand or we need to keep charging ahead.

But if you go within to your whole heart, you will find the seed of possibility…and consider turning it into the living reality of your precious life.

All you need to do is start with this very moment, then the next and the next. Make space for the truth of these moments to expand so you can live what you already know—in your choices, your priorities, and the energy you embody.

You’ll find inner aliveness…and everyone around you gets to bask in your glow.

None of these truths will be news to you. You know them already more intimately than you could imagine. So let’s explore what’s possible…

Savoring

Life is bursting at the seams in every moment in an amazing array of people, objects, sounds, sights, and situations. Rather than judging, evaluating, or taking things for granted, try savoring what’s present.

Use your senses to experience what shows up in your life. For example, if you’re eating an apple, taste it, smell it, hear and feel the crunch. Savor the deliciousness of the apple moment.

If you’re walking in nature, take your time and drink it in fully. If you’re feeling emotions, be curious to meet them as they are.

Now savor the experience of everything—being in your home and with your loved ones, doing the dishes, walking the dog, working… Savor what’s present, and your whole experience of your life will change.

Wholeness

You may have had life experiences that make you believe you’re inadequate or unworthy, but is that really the truth of who you are?

Even if it’s just a whisper in your being, you know that prior to any limiting ideas about yourself, you are alive, loving, and free. Something in you believes that this is true. Because it is.

What would it be like to live from wholeness? You’re present in your relationships and available to intimate connection. You let go of trying to fix yourself and instead open into a vast field of compassion. You’re able to flow with what life brings you.

You realize that every moment offers opportunities that support happiness and well-being.

Instead of pretending you’re damaged, assume that you’re whole. Then let your life experience unfold…gloriously…

Peace

You can choose to resist what is actually here in this moment, but you are going against the grain of what is, and you’ll suffer. What you already know is that peace is your true nature.

You don’t need to find inner peace. If you stop battling your own experience, peace is revealed, naturally. Experiment with not running from your emotions or believing things will be better “if only” something were different. Effortlessly, you’ll realize peace.

You have to work to be at war by believing your thoughts that resist and divide. Do you want to be peaceful? You don’t have to do one single thing except align your conscious awareness with things as they already are.

~~~~~~~~~~~

There is always an opportunity to live what you already know. And that’s an inspiring invitation to take into your day…

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“If one’s mind has peace, the whole world will appear peaceful.”
~Ramana Maharshi

I love this quote by Ramana Maharshi because it points us to an essential truth about the power of the mind: whatever is happening in our minds is what we project onto the world.

If the mind is peaceful, everything appears peaceful. If the mind is stressed, looping, or filled with conflict and drama, then peace will be elusive.

So in the spirit of peace and happiness, let’s get curious about the mind…

Many of us hold on tightly to familiar ways of thinking about ourselves, relationships, other people, and situations. And when the world doesn’t agree with our views, we suffer..

He shouldn’t have done that…That shouldn’t have happened to me…I can’t seem to get what I want out of life…I’m a failure, an imposter, inadequate, scared of what might happen.

Each of these thought patterns brings about an emotional reaction that contributes to the cycle of discontent. And this cycle defines our experience of the world.

Couldn’t you write a manual on how to be unhappy? I know I could:

• Expect things to be a certain way;
• Identify yourself as insufficient or incapable;
• Believe your judgments of yourself and others;
• Believe what fear tells you;
• Believe that you’re right and others are wrong;
• Spin around in the same old stories about things.

In other words, live in the rigidity of your thoughts. Let yourself be confined by the past. Don’t consider any fresh perspectives or new possibilities.

But what if peace is beckoning you? How do you get out of the rut of habitual thinking?

Consider bringing openness and flexibility to your mind. Breathe new life into the rigid places in your thought patterns. Be curious rather than closed; open to a way that is fresh and new rather than stuck in same old, same old.

On my first meditation retreat years ago, I got a firsthand look at my mind, and it was shocking. I saw that it was filled nonstop with judgments, strong points of view, old stories, and opinions about this and that. What was going on in my mind was my lived reality. No wonder I wasn’t peaceful!

What I learned is that I needed a new relationship with these thoughts. Did I have to believe all that thinking? Did I need the thoughts to guide me in my life? No. There was so much negative clutter that I was happy to let it go and open to another way.

Turn your attention to your mind—with curiosity—so you can learn what’s going on in there. Give yourself some time to recognize familiar thought patterns and how you feel when you’re thinking them. Do they serve your peace and happiness?

Then experiment with flexibility. What if you didn’t take the judgments and opinions so seriously? What if you didn’t run stories about what should and shouldn’t have happened? What if you saw things as they are rather than through conditioned mind-created constructs?

Let your mind be open wide like the sky, and you might discover you don’t need all this thinking. Abandon your familiar views that divide and separate—and maybe you’ll find a deeper connection with all of life.

A mind open beyond all limits is transparent, radiant, and completely alive.

Flexible mind…infinite mind…boundlessly peaceful mind…

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Are you sensitive, prone to feeling resentment, rejection, disapproval, or disappointment? Then you’re taking things personally, and you know how much it hurts.

Taking things personally is one of the tender human experiences that cuts deep, and we often have trouble finding our way out.

I used to feel personally offended if someone was late or didn’t call or disagreed with my point of view. At times, it seemed like everywhere I turned, someone was trying to hurt my feelings. I didn’t know what to do with this pain—except to blame the people around me and withdraw.

Now with a completely different view of human challenges—and so much more compassion for myself and others—I know the freedom that comes with not taking things personally.

It’s possible to be free of the hooks and edges that cause you to feel put down or slighted. You can live as the free-flow of life where nothing sticks. An event happens, someone says something to you or about you, and here you are—open, untouched, loving, not resisting anything.

And when the hurt of taking things personally appears, you meet it with pure, abiding love…because that’s what it needs.

Unlocking the door to freedom from taking things personally invites you to be aware of your own reactions. What someone else says or does is about them, and how you react is about you. So we focus on something we can do something about, which is our own reactions.

You might call what you’re experiencing disappointment or rejection, but the reality of it is that some thoughts and feelings have gotten triggered. What can we do with them?

If you feed the story, wallow in feeling badly, or run mental loops about what should and shouldn’t have happened, you will stay stuck.

Instead, shift to a different approach, which is to hold loving space for the thoughts in your mind and feelings in your body. It looks like this:

• When you feel the pain of taking something personally, pause, take a breath, and turn toward your inner experience.
• Be the loving companion to your feelings and how they’re showing up in your body.
• Keep breathing…and hold them with presence and care, just as they are.
• As the story subsides, you’ll find compassion for your own pain and eventually the space to open to those you feel have hurt you as well.

This is what softens the habit of our personal pain.

The part of you that takes things personally may feel raw and young, and here’s why. For most of us, these painful reactions originated in childhood. When we were young, events happened that brought about emotional reactions in us. If we didn’t have the deep acceptance from others to experience our reactions, they leave a hidden impression in our bodies and minds, and we’re prone to reacting the same way again and again.

Decades later, here we are, experiencing rejection, disappointment, and shame—and taking it personally. Then the spinoff stories start: I’m not deserving, I’m inadequate, I’m unlovable. These experiences congeal into an identity that keeps you frozen and limited.

But what exactly is this identity? It seems so real, but when you shine the spotlight of your curious attention inward, all you notice are thoughts and feelings.

There is no “you,” no identity of one who has been rejected or disappointed. Only thoughts and feelings appearing in awareness.

Once we begin to discover this truth, we’re available to feeling open, generous, and compassionate—ways of being that are just not available to us when we’re caught in the identity as the one who takes things personally.

Every time we feel hurt is an opportunity for more freedom. Meet your own experience with the love you are longing for. Recognize that others are hurting, too. And with the understanding that it’s not personal, expand your heart endlessly into its true nature that lovingly welcomes all.

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Who doesn’t want to be comfortable? I love it when I’m relaxed, sitting in a cozy chair, and feel at ease with the people I’m with. All is well.

But there is this imaginary place we call our “comfort zone,” and I’m wondering if it’s really all that comfortable.

We say that we’re in our comfort zone when feel safe and relaxed in circumstances that are familiar, known, and predictable.

The comfort zone doesn’t sound like a bad place to be—unless what you’re comfortable with is unfulfilling behavior patterns, resentments from the past, and beliefs about yourself and the world that limit you. Defined by fear of the unknown, you’re caught in limitation and may be missing out on possibilities awaiting you beyond what you already know.

If you’re in what we call our comfort zone, you must also have a discomfort zone—which includes all those experiences you protect yourself from. Consider these:

• Emotions you’ve been avoiding;
• Changes that seem risky;
• Potential beyond what you know and believe to be possible;
• Ease and flow with whatever life brings you;
• The freshness of life unfolding as it is.

Spinning our wheels in old baggage, thinking of ourselves as a victim, habits that don’t serve our happiness—these are the territory of the comfort zone. Although we stay safe, we also feel stuck and dissatisfied, thinking that there must be more to life.

What does the comfort zone exclude? Enthusiasm, wonder, curiosity, and infinite possibility beyond the mind’s limits.

Fear of the unknown requires us to manage our life experiences so we don’t stray into scary places. It’s like standing at the door of all that life is offering us, dividing it up by welcoming experiences that are known and excluding those that aren’t. That takes a lot of effort and just doesn’t feel free.

If you want freedom, if you’re not happy in your life, then here’s your invitation: get comfortable with discomfort.

Sometimes life unexpectedly throws us out beyond our comfort zone. Your wife says she wants a divorce, you watch your child going down a troubled path, you win the lottery. These are life-changing experiences that shatter our ideas about how things should be and make us reconsider everything.

But don’t wait for an extreme life event to explore the unknown.

• Let yourself feel the fear that has been driving you, then don’t let it rule your choices.
• Experience the emotions that underlie your compulsive habits. Then you’re free for new ways of being.
• Have the hard conversations that you know are necessary. And it might be a conversation with yourself.
• Be willing to answer the call to lean into the unknown.
• Question how you define who you are to see if it is actually true.

Staying in the comfort zone takes effort and vigilance. It resists what is. It hides from what is true. It makes you believe you’re a fraction of who you are.

In any moment, you can go beyond it to connect with what you really want. You might find that playing it safe isn’t what’s actually calling you. Perhaps you discover the longing to be aligned with the infinite truth of things rather than the mind’s limitations.

What’s alive in you that wants to be known and expressed? Where is your full-on “Yes?” Where do you go if you follow wonder, inspiration, and love?

Consider going beyond your comfort zone to find out…

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The post Is Your Comfort Zone Really That Comfortable? appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
~Socrates

I used to live my life completely caught up in my mind. An underlying sense of anxiety fed a constant stream of thinking that left me feeling stressed and out of sorts.

“Should I choose this or that? What are the pros and cons? Should I have said that? What should I do? What if this or that happens?”

And I know I’m not alone. I encounter people every day who try to figure things out in their minds by going back and forth, round and round, questioning every single detail. And they define themselves by self-judgment and old, unprocessed confusion from the past.

It’s an endless cycle that doesn’t bring the peace and ease that is possible for all of us.

So here’s the good news—most of this thinking is optional. You don’t have to constantly think in order to live fully and well. Life doesn’t require our bodies and minds to be on high alert every second.

In fact, without all this stressful thinking, you just might begin to recognize the beauty of what’s available right now. You don’t need to stop your thoughts, but if you don’t go into your mind for information, you will notice a sense that, right now, everything is okay. You realize you can relax, take a breath, and be…

With this fresh way of being, you open to curiosity, wonder, and true intimate connection.

And you might discover that the clarity you’re looking for is here in the reality of how things actually are…and not in the mind’s obsessive thinking.

We assume that we need to think in order to live—but is this true?

I have made a thorough study of thinking, and here’s what I’ve discovered: 99% of thoughts are repetitive, negative, and patently unhelpful. These are thoughts that compare, judge, worry, doubt, assume, and analyze. They don’t support our happiness, and they divert us from the truth of things as they are.

There’s reality—what is actually here and happening—then the mind laying a distorted interpretation onto this reality. Veiled by the mind’s chatter, it’s impossible to see clearly.

We’re living in a fear-infused view of things rather than in reality itself. That’s why we feel separate and uncomfortable in ourselves and in life. We assume we need to stay vigilant of every detail around us so we’re safe—when actually all this thinking leaves us more anxious.

And while we’re busy thinking, what’s happening? Life is unfolding right here and now—in this precious moment—flowing just as it is. No commentary is needed for life to flourish fully.

So what’s the alternative if most thinking isn’t necessary? Don’t pay attention to the swirl of thoughts, and see what happens.

You immediately notice a sense of aliveness that has nothing to do with thoughts…and a deeply felt connection with everything. Staying here and not in your thoughts, maybe you can relax into life and flow without having to figure it all out. Peace and ease are possible, I promise.

Just be here now…free of the mind’s content…fully alive in this beautiful, uncontrollable, mysterious unfolding…

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The post Most Thinking: Not Necessary appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

There is a great power that is well within your reach. It’s the simplest thing. It takes very little time, it’s available always, and has the potential to radically transform how you experience your life.

Do you want to stop feeding negative thought patterns? Do you want to be peaceful and at ease?

It’s the first step to freedom: shhh…just be quiet…

Be quiet? In the middle of all the noise? It’s revolutionary.

Maybe you’ve noticed that the objects and situations of the world pull for our attention. We’re drawn into thoughts, consumed by emotions, and propelled forward by demands and desires. It’s obsessive and exhausting, yet it’s what we call normal human life.

Just a few minutes of quiet offers space from the noise. It invites a return to our natural state of peace and ease and exposes the mindless habits that take over our capacity to see clearly.

Sitting in quiet has been a transformative part of my path. When I began to meditate years ago, the reasons I was suffering immediately became clear. I discovered so much unexplored fear, stories of resentment, and judging thoughts that I hadn’t realized were present.

During several meditation retreats in the vastness of the California desert, I finally got quiet enough to find open space for all that wanted to arise. As layers of pain were set free, it was uncomfortable, intense, and joyous.

And it started with being quiet.

Being quiet may be outside your comfort zone, but it’s simple. Here’s how: sit down, close your eyes, and be present with whatever you notice.

The goal is not to stop thoughts or change any part of your experience. Rather, we simply allow what arises to be here as it is.

Thoughts, emotions, and impulses to act? Physical sensations and energies? No problem. We take our stand as open space and let everything be.

Our normal tendency is to be outside ourselves thinking, feeling, and doing. Being quiet invites our attention inside. We move from doing to being, from analyzing to loving everything as it is.

It’s like being the sky that has no resistance to any clouds passing through. Staying as sky, we’re simply here…open, present, at peace.

If you’re not used to being quiet, start small.

• Just a minute or two when you wake up in the morning and before you go to sleep is a good beginning;
• You might sit in your car for an extra minute before you go on with your day; or
• You might spend 20 minutes or more quietly breathing and being.

It might feel awkward or scary at first, which is often the case when things are new. Be brave and commit to spending time in quiet for a few minutes every day. Just do it as an experiment to see what it’s like for you.

Here are some times when being quiet is especially helpful:

• When you’re caught up in emotions;
• When something has triggered you;
• When you’re consumed by thinking (Hint: take a breath and notice sensations in your body);
• When you know you’re avoiding admitting the truth to yourself;
• When you’re feeling stressed or out of sorts;
• For no reason at all.

Try it out without any expectation, and simply let things unfold effortlessly. Who knows what will happen?

You discover you can have space from the whirlpool of your thoughts and feelings. You see that maybe they don’t have to dominate your life.

The invitation is simple…shhh…just be quiet…

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Are you a giver? Do you burn yourself out taking care of other people’s needs and trying to do good in the world?

This way of being isn’t sustainable. We end up losing our boundaries and betraying our truth—while thinking we need to keep giving. It’s exhausting!

We start out with good intentions—to express love through our actions. But soon it gets messy.

• We resent it when our help isn’t received;
• We end up being taken advantage of;
• We fear we won’t be liked;
• We don’t believe we have the right to say no.

Entangled in our personal needs, our happiness is attached to the results of our actions. We’re not giving just for the sake of giving. We’re giving so we can feel good, get approval, or confirm to ourselves that we’re the giver we think we’re supposed to be. Stuck in this mindset, how can we possibly feel fulfilled in life…and in our relationships?

This problem is rooted in limiting ideas that we’re inadequate or unlovable. And the solution is to know that is not who we really are.

True service emerges effortlessly through us with complete surrender of everything that defines our personal sense of self. This includes our beliefs about ourselves and the world, our stories, our expectations, and our attachment to any outcomes—all driven by fear and need.

Are you ready to move beyond these limiting ideas? Because none of them can begin to define the truth of your infinite radiance.

When we give freely, our actions are revealed by listening deeply inside to see how life calls us. We’re moved by love—not by beliefs or history, and not by what we think we should do. We don’t need to act to feel good about ourselves.

Actions of true service arise, uncaused, with no regard to the outcome.

Early on in my career as a psychotherapist, I was confused about what it means to serve. I felt frustrated when clients didn’t improve and, even though I was trying hard, I considered that maybe my skills were inadequate. It was stressful—until I received the support I needed that changed my perspective entirely.

I learned to take my personal needs out of the equation so I could be fully in the moment with the person in front of me..intimate and unveiled… All that was being asked of me was to show up completely—empty, loving, and authentic.

Without attachment to outcomes or goals, and with no need to fix anyone, my joy for the work blossomed.

True service is not only about how we relate to others. Every moment of deep inner listening and surrender is service. In these temporary human forms, we’re here to be used in service to the undivided, to the flow of life, to how love wants to move.

And it includes everyone and everything. It’s the energy you bring to driving in a traffic jam, the way you chop the celery, the kindest “no” that speaks what’s true for you.

Do you want to truly serve? Then be empty…and fully alive in the now. Don’t carry forward your fears and beliefs that you’re inadequate. Then you’re available, wide open and curious, to know how life wants to move you…

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The post Are You Serving Fear or Love? appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

Have you noticed this truth? The more we run from our feelings, the more they run us. Take a look at your own life to see if this is true:

• Are you limiting yourself when you know you are capable of more? Fear is driving you.
• Do you drink or eat too much? Some feeling is eating away at you.
• Do you complain? You’re likely to be irritated or disappointed.
• Are you emotionally triggered by certain people? Do you continually make self-defeating choices? You haven’t yet discovered the feeling that is the root cause.

We tend to avoid feelings for good reason—at a physical level, our brains and bodies are programmed to turn away from pain and seek pleasure. And avoiding feelings may have been a useful coping mechanism early on in our lives.

But if you’re reading this, you’re probably aware of longings beyond mere survival. My guess is that you’re captivated by the possibility of knowing unshakeable peace and infinite love.

Then consider rising above your programmed tendencies to avoid emotions and turn inward toward them with your heart wide open.

It might sound like a paradox, but when we welcome our emotions just as they are, that’s when they begin to soften. What was stuck is now free. And what you’ll undoubtedly begin to notice is spaciousness in your whole being alive with new possibilities…

What Is a Feeling?

Before we can learn how to be with feelings, we need to understand precisely what they are.
When we turn inward to explore our experience of emotions, what we find are sensations in the body and a story that you tell yourself in your mind.

Are you aware of fear? You’ll notice a rush of thoughts about the future or self-doubt along with tension, vibration, and jitteriness in the body. Feeling sad? You might find a story running in your mind about inadequacy, regret, or loss along with a dense feeling in the chest. Anger? You might notice a pressured monologue in your mind along with volcanic sensations in the body.

Knowing that emotions consist of a story in your mind and physical sensations is profound because it’s the key to freedom from them.

When we’re avoiding emotions, we’ve left ourselves by feeding the mental story and focusing on the outside world. We’re missing the direct experience of what’s happening in our bodies. When we welcome emotions fully, we turn toward all of ourselves—physical sensations, energies, and parts of us that feel young and disconnected—with unconditional acceptance, love, and care. This is how we find our way back to our essential wholeness.

Knowing How the Story Works

Giving attention to any thoughts will take you away from the direct experience of the feeling in your body. But don’t take my word for it.

When you’re captured by a feeling, check out to see how often you repeat in your mind the story of what happened and how things should be different. Some stories get stuck for decades, keeping the feelings—and the suffering—firmly in place.

The function of these energized thoughts is to try to solve the problem in your mind and divert you from directly experiencing the sensations in your body.

Maybe you’ve had the same experience as me. If I’m angry at someone, in a moment of awareness, I’ll realize that I’ve been rehearsing over and over in my mind what I would like to say to the person. My hands are clenched and my body is tense and contracted. I’m clearly having a reaction, but I didn’t know it because my attention was lost in thoughts.

Giving thoughts a lot of your attention will never release you from the emotion. Ignore the sensations in your body, and you will live in the story forever.

How to find freedom? Turn your attention away from the stories, no matter how enticing they may be, and bring openness and compassion to the felt experience in your body. Even long-standing patterns, habits, and grudges will begin to release.

Sometimes the Story Needs to Be Told

Despite the wisdom of letting go of the story, sometimes it needs to be told. Not in the same compulsive way you’ve been telling yourself forever, but in a way that lets you have the experience of being heard and deeply accepted by someone. Find a trusted friend or professional, and tell them what’s on your mind and how you feel.

When the time is right, be willing to say “goodbye” to this narrative, then open to the sensations in your body that have been driving it. It’s simple; here’s how…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Put down the fight with your own experience. Center your attention in a vast open field of space, and let any sensations be present as long as they want to be. Over and over, return to being this loving, unconditionally welcoming space for whatever sensations appear. This is how emotions come for liberation.

With your attention no longer stuck on old stories, what do you notice? Here you are…peaceful…open…loving…free…

The post The Highly Intelligent Approach to Difficult Emotions appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

I recently spoke to a friend who is concerned about her tendency to judge her partner’s behavior. (Sound familiar? Is there someone you tend to judge?)

As she became curious about what was behind this pattern, she had an illuminating insight. Every time she felt the urge to judge him, she realized she experienced hurt, anger, and an unmet need.

Now she knew what was driving her criticisms of him.

Can you see how useful this insight is? Her focus shifted entirely from her frustrations about her partner to the tenderness and vulnerability of her own inner experience.

Instead of judging, she breathed with the emotions and gave them the space to be present. Instead of sitting in the painful story of an unmet need, she began to reflect on wise ways to be with that pain.

Are there times when people trigger you? If you’re living and breathing, if you woke up this morning to a new day in this human life, the answer is undoubtedly, “Yes.”

So let’s see how we can find our way from frustration to peace, from tension, taking things personally, and being right to ease and openheartedness. Because the way out of suffering is always possible.

Please Change So I Feel Better

First, let’s realize that when we don’t explore our own inner experience, our attention goes outward toward the other. We blame and want others to change so we feel better.

Chris wants his partner to not ask so many questions so he can feel less stressed. Jenna wants her husband to not throw his clothes on the floor so she can be less frustrated. Joe wants his coworker to stop talking so much so he won’t feel bored and irritated.

When we want others to change, we’re giving up our peace and happiness to something we can’t control—other people’s behavior.

When our attention goes to the other and not toward our own reactions, we’re actually contributing to disharmony and divisiveness. We end up feeling like a victim. Unaware of the inner experiences that are driving us, we gossip, criticize, fight, manipulate, blame, leave, and rationalize our opinions to ourselves and everyone else.

But another choice is available. Rather than spinning in stressful stories about other people, we can turn toward our own experience with curiosity, love, and care.

The Invitation to Look Within

Our annoyances with others offer a beautiful invitation into our own experience. And this is the treasure that challenging people bring us. They are a mirror that reflects back to us our own inner walls and unexplored emotions.

If you lash out at your partner in anger, you might realize you’re also sad or afraid. If you put demands on your children, maybe you feel helpless or scared, triggered by events from your own history. If you criticize your partner, maybe you need some time alone to reconnect with yourself.

Take any stressful interaction, and like a trail of breadcrumbs, follow your reaction back into yourself to untangle it. I guarantee your discovery will be illuminating.

• Start by asking yourself, “Now that I’m triggered, what is my inner experience?” Slow down, take a breath, and see what wants to be revealed.
• Feel into the effects of judging and thinking you’re right.
• Turn toward any feelings you’re aware of, and welcome them fully with kindness and love.

Once you stop seeing others through the veil of your own resistance, you may be surprised to find understanding and compassion—for other people as well as yourself.

Remnants from the Past

Often, the strong feelings that arise in our current interactions echo an unresolved relationship from our past.

If you were criticized by an overly demanding parent, it won’t take much for a boss correcting your work to seem like a tyrant in your eyes. If you were neglected as a child, you may feel like you’re five again when a friend calls to cancel plans at the last minute.

Any reaction that seems too intense for the situation has probably triggered some old, undigested feelings.

What to do with these emotions that come to light? Love them with all your heart. Over and over, turn toward the tender, young parts of yourself and embrace them with love and care. In the spirit of wisdom beyond your limiting conditioned patterns, offer the space for everything to come out of hiding…

There’s a saying that things don’t happen to you, they happen for you. The challenges in our relationships are an offering, a gentle tap on the shoulder to remind us to open to the ways we get caught. What can we learn when these tender places are triggered?

It’s a holy movement when we turn our attention away from the other and into ourselves. Then the magic starts to happen.

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The most pleasurable and effortless action flows from an uncluttered mind.

We respond with what’s needed in the moment. We don’t obsess, doubt, worry, or regret. These actions emanate from clarity about what to do and finish without adding any inner turmoil. They leave no residue, and there’s no second-guessing. They are unambiguous, joyful, and efficient.

And then there are actions that stick to us like glue. We have a sinking feeling before we do them as we justify them in our minds…and their shadow stays with us no matter what we do. Consider these examples:

• Not telling the whole truth, lying
• Gossiping
• Criticizing, judging
• Manipulating, controlling
• Avoiding
• Addictive or compulsive behaviors

These behaviors feed confusion and inner agitation. They come from fear, desire, lack, and pressure. And by doing them, we’re strategizing to avoid discomfort, make ourselves look good, get what we think we need, and do what we think we should.

They leave us in an endless loop trying to figure things out and struggling to find peace. In my experience, it’s not a satisfying way to be.

Let’s explore more deeply actions that arise from inner knowing and love. We receive the circumstances we find ourselves in through a clear mind and open heart, then trust the response that arises.

Grounded within, we tune into what is true for us and let that be our guide. We’re open to all possibilities, with the fierce commitment to putting the needs of the separate self aside and letting ourselves be moved by life.

We unhook from stressful actions so we can live freely. We make space for creativity and flow. We have the courage to follow our deepest yearnings even if they’re outside our comfort zone.

Clean actions arise in the moment as we surrender our personal dramas and allow the truth to appear. We ask: what is this moment calling for? And listen for the answer.

Even in the bigger decisions in life—to leave a job, to get married or divorced, to have children—these appear in their own time and not from the mind.

When deep listening was becoming a way of life for me years ago, I felt life’s movement inside and sometimes questioned it. My thought was, “You really want me to say (or do) that??”

Yet, I trusted and followed it—and continue to with great surrender in every aspect of my life. Why? Because what flows is intimacy, love, and peace.

Sometimes the action that’s called for is no action. Rather than propelling ourselves forward into our habits once again, we realize that we’re being invited into stillness…and silence. And that’s a beautiful way to be.

If you’re drawn to acting from wisdom and love, be aware, open, and receptive. Sidestep the pull of your conditioning and let each action be lived fully through you. With no trace and no residue, you’re available to celebrate whatever comes—awake, clear, and fully alive.

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The world is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place filled with a fantastic array of objects and situations. I love the world!

But I also know this essential truth: we will never find peace and happiness by being attached to the objects of the world.

If you are waiting for happiness to arrive at some future time, or you think you’ll find it once something in the world changes, then you’re setting yourself up to continue searching—and suffering—forever.

This way of living actually delays your happiness. It makes you believe that the peace and ease you long for are not available to you now—which is just not true.

It keeps you trying to change the objects of the world—relationships, other people, work situations, even your own thoughts and feelings—so that maybe, hopefully, finally, you’ll be peaceful and happy.

Looking for happiness in the objects of the world is doomed from the get-go. Why? Because it’s the nature of these objects to change.

• You hit a rough patch in your relationship, and you’re on the lookout for a new partner who will finally be the one.
• You’re settled in your work, and your company gets restructured.
• You plan your travels, and your flight gets cancelled.
• You get lost in troublesome thoughts and feelings, hoping they will finally disappear so you can relax.

See how it works? If you’re attached to the world being a certain way, you’re bound to be disappointed.

And thinking more about yourself and your problems will never lead to the peace you’re looking for. Because the world isn’t reliable and your thoughts just add more stories.

It’s worth considering: is what you’re doing actually getting you what you want?

While you’re busy focused on moving around the puzzle pieces of your life, you’re missing out on the open secret—the silence of being, the stillness that’s always here at the heart of all the noise. It’s the open endless field of aliveness that the objects of the world arise in.

You don’t need to move one millimeter from where you are right now to discover it. Land your attention—and your whole heart—here, in the spacious openness of being aware, and let the objects of the world be.

It’s like being a fish in the ocean wondering where the water is—overlooking the fact that it’s right here and everywhere.

If you’re serious about happiness, then don’t looking for it in the world. Because all you’re doing is perpetuating your struggles.

Instead, turn inward toward your inner experience. Discover the opinions, needs, and fears that keep you divided from yourself and the happiness you seek. As best as you can, give up your attachment to them.

They’re not helping you anyway because they’re distracting you from finding what you’re actually longing for.

Coming home to yourself, you’re poised to realize the true source of happiness, what remains when you lose interest in all objects. You in your glory: pure and open…profoundly relaxed…unconditionally available to everything…free of any viewpoints…empty…silent…loving…

Then, attached to nothing and steeped in love, the world becomes your playground.

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The post Are You Looking for Happiness in the World of Objects? appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

As you may know from your own experience, anxiety can be overpowering. The mind loops in worry and fearful thinking, and the agitation in your body won’t let go. It’s just plain uncomfortable.

When we’re caught in the grip of anxiety, we have two choices available to us:

• We can stay trapped in the mind’s looping thoughts, or;
• We can invite our attention to rest outside the anxious mind…in the simple experience of being aware in the here-and-now.

This is where we touch the essence of who we are beyond the limiting ideas of the personal, fear-driven self.

I love that this choice is available! We can continue to suffer, or we can begin to find our way to freedom. Here’s how.

An essential first step to finding release from anxiety is to recognize that thoughts are present as part of your experience.

If you’re feeling anxious, you will find thoughts running nonstop in your mind—of judgment, comparison, worry, doubt, and expectation. So much thinking!

And if you explore these thoughts, you’ll notice they’re telling you stressful and negative stories about yourself, other people, and the world—that you’re inadequate, that others are not to be trusted, and that it’s not safe to let your guard down and simply be.

Thinking thoughts means that you’re feeding what they’re telling you with your attention. You believe them and assume that they’re real and important. This is what roots the anxiety even deeper in your being—and takes you farther from the peace you’re looking for.

Let yourself feel into how persistent these thoughts are and how tense you feel when you’re chewing on them.

Then, from your deep knowing that they’re just stressful mental chatter, stop being interested in them as much as possible. Ignore everything the mind is telling you.

Instead of getting lost in thinking, take a few loving breaths and feel the sensations of the breath in your body. Take a big stretch, do some jumping jacks, or expand your attention to what you see, hear, and feel in the present moment. Do anything that helps you ignore the cycling thoughts.

Open to a couple of things you feel grateful for to activate your essential capacity for love. If someone is with you, meet them with presence coming through your eyes.

See how your whole experience changes? With your attention now in deep connection with the present moment—and not in your mind—you’re relaxed, effortlessly being, here and alive.

It may take many journeys through this process as you find peace for a short time before the mind and body seize up again. But it doesn’t matter. Don’t lose faith. Anxiety doesn’t hold a candle to the power of love and truth.

I receive emails almost every day from people whose experience has been transformed by their fierce determination for freedom that just won’t quit.

Keep trusting in the life force that is infinitely greater than your false personal self. Keep returning to the aliveness that is who you are.

This is the anchor that will set you free.

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All of us want to be happy, right?

Happiness—or call it peace, love, uncaused joy, the knowing that all is well—is our birthright, our true nature that is always available to be known and lived.

Yet sometimes this truth seems hidden, and we’re taken over by uncomfortable feelings and sticky stories about ourselves and others that feel real.

When we’re caught in the web of these narratives, here’s an important question to ask: How have I turned away from what is fundamentally true?

A paradigm is a way of thinking, and a paradigm shift is a revolution, a complete, radical change in how we view reality. In the times when we’re stuck, maybe that’s exactly what we need…

With a paradigm shift, old assumptions no longer apply, and a completely new, fresh way of being takes their place. We come out of the fog of same old-same old and into the garden of possibility.

Do you want to know the peace and happiness that you are? Consider shining the light of conscious awareness more fully on your inner experience. Then prepare for the revolution…

Several years ago, my interest in freedom ignited, and I realized that, as part of the path, I needed to understand my personal suffering. This was a huge paradigm shift for me—from living blindly hoping things would improve to attuning closely to my emotions and body sensations in the moment.

And what a discovery I made! I saw the useless mental chatter that accompanied me as I washed the dishes. I felt physical tension that never seemed to dissolve. And one morning upon waking, I noticed a subtle heavy feeling that said, “Oh, another day to deal with.” I realized that this feeling had been present most mornings for a long time.

It was a lightbulb moment for me to see that I carried around this resistance most of the day. And, strange as it sounds, I was excited to notice it. Finally, I understood how suffering happens and saw a way forward to the freedom so many were telling me about.

Much of our behavior in life happens automatically. We feel, think, and act in our human lives…without much awareness of what we’re doing and what’s behind it.

I was waking up every morning unconsciously dreading the day and assuming it was going to be difficult. Couples often repeat the same argument over and over, even though they vow not to. You want to improve your diet, but you keep falling off the wagon. You might find yourself regularly feeling angry or afraid without knowing why. These conditioned tendencies run deep.

What are the patterns you blindly play out?

There is nothing inherently wrong with not being aware. But if we want to wake up and actually be alive in our lives, conscious awareness is the doorway. We need to know precisely what is happening when we’re triggered so we can notice the judgments, assumptions, and stories we believe, and lovingly meet the emotions that appear.

And this is what changes everything. We turn toward and befriend our inner experience so our patterns don’t undermine us. Being lovingly aware of all that is heals separation from ourselves and from life.

Awareness brings us out of the repetitive conditioned mind loop so we can respond with intelligence, freedom, and heart. It’s a fundamental paradigm shift—and a sacred revolution that sets you free.

Being aware of my morning resistance to the day sparked a momentous change. I saw that it was based on pessimistic assumptions that weren’t true. I started waking up looking for this feeling, smiling at it, then going about my business.
It became small and powerless, and several months later, I realized that the feeling had not even appeared in a while.

When you start to become conscious of what has lived in you unexamined, you may not like what you see. But you’ll quickly recognize the opportunity to no longer be ruled by unconscious motives and emotions that seem out of our control.

Once you become totally alive to your experience as it’s actually happening, the patterns soften, and happiness has a welcoming space to bloom. That’s a revolution I can get behind.

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Do you ever feel stuck? Does it seem like things will never change no matter how hard you try?

Well, maybe, as Einstein suggests, you need to find a different way to approach your problems.

I hear from people who have tried everything—years of therapy, lots of self-help books, trying hard to love themselves more—and I was one of them. We desperately want to feel better in life, but somehow, no matter how hard we try, we keep repeating the same stressful patterns that don’t bring the happiness we’re looking for. It’s frustrating!

And that’s why Einstein’s quote above is so inspirational. It invites us to open up, to get curious, to look for another way. And when it comes to everyday human suffering, there is always another way.

So how do you solve your problems? Here is another quote for your contemplation:

“All problems are psychological, but all solutions are spiritual.”
~Thomas Hora

Psychological problems stem from a range of stories that we live by and keep repeating in our minds. We have stories about:

• Our past;
• Ourselves…often involving self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy;
• Our needs and fears; and
• Other people and the situations in our lives.

And when we believe these stories are true, we feel sad, depressed, anxious, confused, or angry.

Take a moment now to reflect on the stories you live by…the mindsets and beliefs that color your view…the interpretations you add to the reality of things that may or may not be true…the ways you limit your full expression in life.

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Knowing that a happier existence must be possible, we’re called to a different way of approaching our problems. What is that way? A spiritual path that takes us outside our well-worn mindsets and beliefs to an exploration of our fundamental identity.

If we are not these limiting stories, who are we?

There is an underlying truth that is here to be discovered—and it’s found outside of our thinking minds. This is the aliveness that animates us, the pure vibration of life that is here behind our histories, viewpoints, and interpretations.

It’s our original innocence, available in every moment, that is perfectly whole—no matter what our minds tell us.

And here is where we find the true and sustainable solution to our problems.

Instead of trying to fix our problems by fixing and changing ourselves and our stories, we change our whole approach. How? By shifting our attention away from the mind’s thinking—and right into our direct experience of the moment, the alive awareness that holds everything in a field of unconditional love.

Now much more spacious and less attached to our thoughts, we gain a fresh perspective on the stories. If we can experience this present moment aliveness, even just a little, maybe these fear-based stories aren’t the truth of who we are. Maybe we can expand beyond them.

Maybe we can show up in the world free of the mind’s haze of inflexible thinking—and finally open to life as it actually is—beyond our veils of conditioning.

What is the true solution to our problems? Explore outside the distorted thinking that makes up what you think are your problems, and here’s what you’ll find:

• A clear understanding of what drives conditioned patterns;
• The capacity for deep compassion for everyone’s struggles, including yourself;
• Heartfelt connection with everything and everyone;
• Loving acceptance of feelings that arise; and
• Wise clarity about the actions to take.

But don’t take my word for it. Look beyond the familiar patterns of thinking. You just might find exactly what you’ve been looking for all along.

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“I feel like a loser.” These were the words of a friend of mine, as we sat over coffee, and it just didn’t compute. Before me was a lovely woman with the kindest heart.

As I listened to her story, I became aware of the impressive power that comes with believing our thoughts.

Every time she showed excitement or clarity, in a split second these thoughts derailed her. “I can’t…” “It won’t work…” No wonder she felt like a loser. Her thoughts were constantly pulling her into limitations that she couldn’t find her way out of.

These beliefs telling us we’re inadequate and flawed are painful. Somehow they end up inhabiting our minds, living there for decades, stealing our happiness, creativity, and well being.

These thoughts are so familiar that we automatically believe them without questioning them. Then they unknowingly become our living reality, influencing how we show up in our relationships, our choices, and our ideas about what’s possible in our lives.

If you want to continue living the painful belief of your personal inadequacy, then read no further. But if you want to live in the truth of who you are, if you’re tired of feeling the weight of not living fully and freely, then bring your attention inward to your own direct experience.

That’s the beginning of the work that sets you free.

Inquire into Your Thoughts

The simple act of inquiring into thoughts is revolutionary because it invites you to reflect on well-worn assumptions and habits of mind.

Bring awareness to thought patterns you take for granted, and question if they accurately describe you. Are you really damaged, insufficient, or incapable? Or are these old labels that no longer apply?

Then go deeper to feel into the impact of these thoughts. How do they make you feel? Do they bring you peace and happiness? Notice the sense of lack and how it propels you to relate to others.

Be aware of how believing these thoughts shrinks you into a limited space…and begin to consider what’s possible outside this space. Who are you if you’re free of these thoughts that define you? What is most alive in you that wants to be expressed?

Turn Toward Your Feelings

Defining yourself as inadequate is also experienced as feelings in your body. What emotions are present—fear, rage, disappointment, grief? Go beyond the stories to recognize and welcome the sensations and energies that arise in your body.

Breathe with how the feeling lives in your body.…letting go of the story of not being good enough and being only with sensations. Have this be a lifestyle so the body has time and space to unwind.

Then practice letting it all be. Relax your attention away from sensations and into the openness in which these sensations arise. Here, everything is held exactly as it is with no resistance. Feel the liberation in all parts of your being.

Experiment with Living Free from Inadequacy

Now that you’re open beyond the story of inadequacy and you’re kind toward your feelings, you get to experiment with living from your essential wholeness.

Stand in your brilliance full of possibility. The thoughts may come, but you know they don’t define you. The feelings may appear, but you meet them lovingly so they’re not in charge.

What are you moved to do? How is it to show up unencumbered and free…in your fullness? How would things change for you?

Expand beyond habitual thoughts. Breathe new space into your body. Then see how life wants you to shine.

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“Life is a mystery. You cannot understand it unless you surrender, for your intellect cannot grasp its expansive and infinite nature, its real meaning and fullness. Bow down low and be humble; then you will know life’s meaning.”
~ Amma

There is an open secret to the spiritual life, and it’s called surrender.

We can try our best to understand the nature of reality and our conditioning. We can hope forever that our troubling thoughts and feelings will subside so we’ll finally be at peace.

But until we surrender, the happiness we long for will elude us.

The word “surrender” means to give back completely, to release ownership of something and offer it back.

What do you surrender?

• Your personal needs and desires;
• Attachment to the content and meaning of all thoughts;
• Attachment to things being familiar and known;
• The need to know;
• The need to understand and analyze with your mind;
• The need to control.

Thats a lot! It’s everything you hang onto that keeps you feeling separate—from others, from yourself, and from life.

In fact, these things were never you. Surrendering lets go of distorted thinking and brings you back home to what was always true.

Surrender everything that makes up the sense of your personal identity, and where are you? Who are you? What are you?’

You’re empty, willing, and totally receptive to something beyond your beliefs about yourself. You’re taken over by the divine flow…the natural intelligence that is the pure substance of life.

Everything is given—the people you know, your talents and skills, the situations you find yourself in, the challenges and joys that make up your life.

You can subtract your personal desires and ideas about things, and your life is still here, beautifully unfolding as it is.

And things get a lot easier once we stop resisting this movement. We’re coming into alignment with things as they truly are.

Surrender arises from total devotion to the heart of life’s unfolding. We bow down with utter humility, beyond receptive, open, empty of personal needs and desires.

We don’t need to hold onto any concerns or figure anything out. We see the futility of going into the mind for answers.

We simply let ourselves be absorbed into the river of life that is already flowing, receiving everything that’s given without one second of hesitation….releasing everything until you are nothing…and letting yourself be the vessel through which life is expressed.

You love what’s given with all your heart. You’re a thousand percent willing to receive what’s offered.

Surrender leaves nothing out, not one stone unturned. But don’t get deterred by the totality of what is being asked of you. Take a baby step in the direction of surrender.

• Stop questioning one idea you’re attached to and flow with what’s given.
• Put aside your view on how you want things to be in one situation and
wholeheartedly embrace what’s actually happening as it is.

Bow down with humility to your one true home…infinite luminous being…

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“Spirituality” is a tricky word, even though it’s commonly used in our culture. To me, it’s a vague term that leaves me wondering what it actually means.

And if a word is open to interpretation, there is room for the mind to chew endlessly on its meaning. “What do you think spirituality means?” “What do you believe?” “Are you a spiritual person?”

These are fine questions for conversation, but they don’t help us to actually understand the magnificent and all-encompassing nature of life itself. And they don’t free us from the prison of the belief that we’re limited and separate.

For me, spirituality refers to our natural state that we experience directly and not through constricting mental beliefs or concepts. Knowing the endless peace beyond peace, it’s our natural state to be happy, relaxed, and at ease. It’s natural to feel whole and calm—and to experience an expanded sense of well-being beyond any learned ideas about ourselves. No longer trapped in the contents of a stressful mind, we realize we’re free of the pain of feeling separate from life.

What is the spiritual path? It’s an ongoing invitation to come home to the truth of ourselves. Over and over, we let go of our interest in the content of the mind and deepen into the realization of boundless presence here and now.

Someone recently asked me how to stop disturbing thoughts about a painful past. And the truth is that we can’t stop thoughts from appearing.

But the essence of this question is really, “How can I be happy?” Isn’t that the question we all have? Don’t we all want to be happy?

Happiness isn’t “out there” and available at some future time. The path from suffering to peace opens into our present moment experience to see what may be masking the realization of the truth of who we are.

This path takes us into the stories we take to be true about ourselves, other people, our past, and the world—and to the realization that they are a false description of the reality of things.

It takes us into our judgments, expectations, and ways that we resist—and shows us how these arbitrary thought patterns that define the personal self are what make us suffer.

And it takes us into the murky stew of our emotions to liberate the life force from its trap of anxiety and lack.

We make the stunning and utterly remarkable discovery that the happiness/peace/sense of being okay we’ve been longing for has been buried within us all along. It comes to light once the structures that make up our personal identities fall apart…like a house of cards in the wind.

What we might call the spiritual path is an expansion beyond all objects of the material world. We live in the world, but we take it lightly because we know it’s not the absolute truth of who we are.

Who we are is the formless open space that’s infinitely alive and aware. And knowing this, we have the amazing insight that we can actually live according to this truth—surrendered, getting out of the way and letting things unfold, intimate with all things, noticing love everywhere.

Call it spirituality, happiness, consciousness, the ultimate reality—words only point to what can only be known in direct experience. And this is the invitation: to turn toward ourselves, to be utterly still, and to know that we’re one with the vibration of life.

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“This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.”
~Maya Angelou

If you’re listening to the voice of fear in your mind, you’re living in a false reality that projects into the future and expects the worst.

Should I or shouldn’t I? What if I do—or don’t? The imagination runs wild thinking of every negative scenario imaginable.

And what’s the effect of living in these negative projections? You’re afraid…you feel stuck…you limit yourself…you play it safe.

We close down to possibilities with our attention captured by fearful thoughts. And we’re missing the beauty of what is real and alive right here and now.

At the core of each of these thoughts is a desire to know what cannot be known. This desire manifests as an imagined negative, scary outcome.

• I won’t find a partner.
• I’ll always be alone.
• I’m afraid I’ll be rejected.
• What if I fail?
• I’ll never be happy.

See how each of these common thoughts contains an assumption about what will happen in the future?

You’re a logical person, right? So here’s the truth: you cannot know ahead of time what will happen. You either know that something is true because it has already occurred. Or it hasn’t occurred yet, and you don’t know what the outcome will be.

Fearful thoughts guess or assume the worst with no logical evidence. And what happens when we take these assumptions to be true? We feel anxious, sad, and paralyzed.

We’re caught in a prison of disappointment and negativity. Something in us knows there must be more to life than this…

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The most liberating statement we can make when it comes to fear is, “I don’t know.”

Try it out right now by saying, “I don’t know.” How does it feel in your body, in your whole being?

“I don’t know if I’ll always be alone.” “I don’t know if I’ll be rejected.”

“I don’t know” brings spaciousness to our present moment experience. It opens the door to unlimited possibilities that the fearful mind can’t begin to contemplate.

In this wide open field of potential, now you’re curious rather than closed. Maybe you’ll discover a new response to a familiar situation or a pattern within yourself that wants your loving attention. Maybe you’ll notice more compassion for others or yourself.

Who knows what you’ll discover in this space of not knowing…

Living in the truth of the unknown is the healing balm for fearful thoughts because it brings your attention right into the here-and-now.

There’s no longer the pressure to know what you can’t possibly know. “Should’s,” assumptions, and expectations fall away.

You’re available to listen deeply, with an open heart, to what Life is offering you….and trust the offering…

Lose interest in the imagined, scary future. Then you’re out of your head and in your life as its unfolding right now. This is where you experience relaxation, gratitude, intimacy, and peace.

But don’t take my word for it. Test it out and watch your life light up…

The unknown is the truth, and the truth will set you free. Do you want to be free of fear? Say “Yes!” to not knowing.

Savor the deeply felt, expansive, enlivening experience of “I don’t know.”

Always in love,
Gail

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Feel into the possibility of being infinitely kind with yourself.

You resist nothing. You don’t feed stories in your mind that make you unhappy, which means you no longer believe self-critical thoughts or judgments of others. You let your feelings in, especially the hard ones, with a compassionate heart.

Not only are you open to what is present, you are openness itself. Here you are—alive, receptive, empty, completely at peace—as thoughts, habits, needs, and emotions come and go within you.

Happiness? Contentment? Fulfillment? So obvious when you know you are this openness that welcomes everything. Already overflowing, you realize that not one extra thing is needed.

Openness is our natural state. So why do we feel separate and alienated? Fear.

We’re afraid of the unknown or losing control. We stay focused on our survival and fear thriving in our true aliveness. We avoid the imagined consequences of opening to the truth of who we are.

We close down to anything that’s fresh, alive, or new.

A difficult feeling comes up—can’t go there. Disappointment, a grudge, an unmet need—these throw you off and leave you scrambling to find equilibrium.

It’s like constantly being at war, keeping the enemy from taking you over. And the enemy is simply your own experience.

This is why we feel discontented, depleted, stressed, and even sick.

Yet something in us desperately longs to relax. We yearn to struggle less and simply be. We want to feel connected to everyone and everything.

Most of us know very well how to close down. It’s a habit, a well-worn path, a choice we make when we’re afraid, confused, or don’t know what else to do.

But openness is always available—with a simple shift in perception from the rigidity of our habits to wide-open space and possibility.

So let’s find the medicine for closing down by exploring this essential question: what is asking for your openness? Turning your attention inward with curiosity, what do you discover?

• An emotion that’s been buried long ago;
• A familiar story or belief that you know doesn’t serve your happiness;
• An identity, a way of thinking about yourself, that is limiting and painful;
• A long-standing sense of mistrust or fear in your relationships;
• A bruised heart.

And maybe you’re called to open to openness itself…

Opening to your inner experience may be scary at first. You don’t know what it will be like or what you will find. So go slowly and get support as you need it.

Meet what you notice with curiosity. Recognize what you’ve been avoiding and gently turn towards it to take a look, asking, “What is this experience that’s been hidden in me?”

Openness is a love letter to yourself. It holds everything without one iota of resistance.

Inhabit openness. Live here gloriously…peacefully… Feelings and sensations may come and go, but there’s no problem to be found. Simply be the openness that you already are…

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If the world out there doesn’t feel safe and welcoming to you, if you can’t be peaceful inside no matter what you try, then you may want to take a look at what you’re attached to.

What is it like to be attached? You want someone or something outside yourself to give you what you think you need to feel happy, whole, or peaceful.

• You can’t feel happy unless others respect, love, or approve of you;
• You’re waiting for someone to apologize so you can be at peace;
• You think your contentment in life depends on the right job, relationship, or family situation;
• You expect other people to listen to and understand you—and you get upset when they don’t.

Unpacking the experience of attachment, here’s what we realize. We’re caught in a story of what we lack—waiting and hoping for a particular outcome—and if we don’t get it, we’re disappointed, frustrated, or dejected.

We end up feeling like a victim, putting our precious happiness in the hands of something we can’t control—what other people say or do and the circumstances of our life situation. Sound familiar?

So how to find freedom from being attached to outcomes you can’t control?

If you want to be happy (and who doesn’t?), let’s bring a fresh perspective to the struggle with attachment. And it has to do with opening fully to what is arising in our own present moment experience.

As Einstein wisely said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

The new level of consciousness that is needed is to forget about looking out to the world, hoping to get the love or apology you think you need. That’s how being attached is rigid and limiting.

Instead, turn your attention inward to your inner experience to be curious about what’s actually arising in you. Then you’ll notice opportunities for compassion, understanding, and freedom.

Because the sense of being stuck is actually in you, and not in the circumstances of the world outside of you.

Look to your thoughts to identify the story you’re telling yourself about what you’re missing that you think you need. This is the core of the attachment—and the story, playing like a loop in your head—that reflects back inside to ignite the feelings of sadness, frustration, and despair.

If you’re focused only on the outer circumstances, all you will notice is what you aren’t getting and the sense of lack that brings. But turn your attention inward, and worlds open up. You’ll find emotions and feelings in your body that are waiting for your loving attention.

Notice the emotional pain you’ve been living with of not getting what you think you need. For many of us, it points to a younger part—the sorrow of you as a child who didn’t get the love and care you needed.

Now you’ve discovered the underlying root of the problem—the emotion that’s been lying here unexplored. Be aware of it, love it, breathe with it, and let it be present. This is how the knot of the attachment starts to soften.

You stop justifying the pain and waiting for someone to change to find resolution…and instead form a friendly and loving relationship with your own experience. In turning toward the longing for something you don’t have, you’ll find that the inner peace you’ve been searching for is available now.

And you might even notice new options appearing—inspired by compassion—for how to meet the other person or situation that was previously the source of your trouble.

It’s an incredibly kind way to be.

The painful feeling of not getting what you think you need will probably return many times, but each time is an opportunity to lovingly welcome your inner experience.

Being attached to an outcome you can’t control creates division that reinforces the idea that you’re separate and lacking—and it just doesn’t feel good. Turning toward what arises in you invites a return to wholeness that includes everything.

Instead of living in lack, you discover acceptance, celebration, and the simple joy of being alive.

The post Are You Attached? Here’s the Way to Freedom appeared first on Dr. Gail Brenner.

Always in love,

Gail

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“Whatever you think you are, that’s not it.”
~ Adyashanti

Many of us live behind layers of assumptions that prevent us from seeing things clearly.

We assume people won’t like us or will reject us. We assume we’ll fail. We assume things won’t go our way. We assume that we actually are the loser our thoughts tells us we are.

What are your assumptions about yourself, other people, or the world? It’s useful to know.

These assumptions are worth recognizing because they powerfully create a limited sense of our living reality. Our everyday experience is based on these beliefs that aren’t even true.

Say that you learned early on not to trust people, which unfortunately happens to some of us. You’re brought up by parents doing their best, but they relate to you with criticism, rejection, or neglect.

If this was your early experience, it makes sense that you would live in the world assuming that others will criticize or reject you.

Then what do you do? You seek out attention and approval, you control the way you present yourself to others, or you avoid relationships altogether. Somehow you attract people who criticize or reject you, completing the circle of unhappiness.

It’s sad and exhausting.

As always when we’re stuck and unhappy, the invitation is to turn our attention toward our own experience with curiosity.

• What are we assuming to be true that isn’t actually true?
• What are the veils that are masking peace and happiness?

An assumption is a highly conditioned belief that makes us think we know how others are going to feel or act.

But it’s a false belief.

Living under assumptions, we lose touch with the freshness of the moment.

And in this freshness, we don’t know how others think or feel. No matter what our thoughts about the past tell us, we don’t know what will happen.

Stepping out from behind the fog of the past, we begin to recognize a spaciousness, here right now, overflowing with new possibilities.

Maybe we are not who our thoughts tell us we are. Maybe our bruised hearts can heal as we discover the place in us that was never wounded.

And from here, maybe we can slowly experiment with new ways of being while also acknowledging the painful places inside:

• Reaching out rather than avoiding;
• Showing a little more of our authentic selves, unveiled;
• Seeing others as they actually are and not how we assume they will be…maybe they are also hurting;
• Bringing kindness to whatever we experience.

Assumptions sit on us like a heavy fog. But behind the fog is the light of your true nature—pure and open.

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If we want to be in our lives feeling spacious, open, and at ease, we’re asked to explore the conditioned patterns that arise in our everyday experience. How is it that we find ourselves in the mud of our conditioning…once again?

One common pattern that I hear a lot about is the tendency to blame others for our problems.

This pattern can be so enticing—because we think we’re right. We focus our attention on how we’ve been wronged by someone else, leaving us stuck in pain and resentment.

What does the voice of blame sound like?

• It’s your fault;
• You need to change;
• You are responsible for my problems;
• If only you were different, I would be fine.

It’s a critical voice that denies and separates.

Here’s how blame makes us suffer. We have a painful emotional reaction when something happens—and instead of turning toward it, we go into our heads, creating a story of blame about the other person that we might repeat for decades.

We abandon the tender parts of ourselves rather than getting curious about them and meeting them with love and care.

The guaranteed result of blaming another? We’re lost in emotional pain, waiting for the other to change so we can be at peace.

And we miss out on the peace that’s possible—right now in this precious moment.

If you are caught in a story of blame, here is your call to action: turn your attention away from the other and inward to your own experience.

Be kind to your humanness; welcome your tenderness and vulnerability.

If you want to be free, don’t listen to the mind that tells you you’re right and get curious about what you’re experiencing inside. How?

• Start to meet the hurt that’s been living in you;
• Take time to breathe with the blocks in your body;
• Acknowledge the energy of sadness, grief, and longing for connection, and give it space to move freely in you.

Rather than blaming another, you walk your own path, focusing on what you can do by cultivating a friendly relationship with your inner experience.

When we turn inward and meet ourselves with love and understanding, something miraculous happens.

• We’re less in our heads and more available to our present moment reality;
• We feel softer and more peaceful;
• Our hearts have space to open to others and ourselves.

No longer so self-focused, we’re more loving and generous—maybe even toward the person we feel wronged us.

The story of blame serves pain and separation. The simple shift of turning inward is the sacred movement toward, peace, ease, and liberation.

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Are you feeling stuck, out of sorts, disconnected? Are you gripped by compulsions or fear? If so, it’s a guarantee that you’re resisting a part of your experience.

Closing down to yourself is so painful. You might avoid feelings as a way to feel better, but it hurts to push them aside. And unexplored feelings is what fuels addictions and other frustrating behavior patterns.

Rather than opening fully to what we’re experiencing, we turn away from the tender parts of ourselves by drinking, staying busy, gossiping, incessant texting, endless thinking.

Anything but the simple act of taking a breath…stopping…and allowing ourselves to befriend what’s here.

When we run from ourselves, we set up an inner war, denying feelings and pretending they don’t exist or judging ourselves for having them. Meanwhile, what is our experience? We’re preoccupied in our minds, feeling tension in our bodies, and keeping ourselves distracted by the drama of life.

It’s a kind of violence. We’re fighting reality, evading the truth of the moment, and cutting off a tender and valid experience that’s part of the totality.

• Do you limit your expression in the world? Fear is driving you.
• Do you drink or eat too much? Some feeling is eating away at you or drowning you.
• Do you complain a lot? You’re likely to be irritated or disappointed.
• Are you emotionally triggered by certain people? Do you continually make self-defeating choices? You haven’t yet discovered the feelings hidden outside of conscious awareness.

Dodging our emotions is saying “no” to life. We’re given the full, glorious, inexpressible reality of the moment, but we choose what we think is acceptable and unacceptable. Then we live in fear that the parts we rejected will push through and overwhelm us.

We resist opening the doors to our inner world for a variety of reasons:

• Intense and painful feelings can be frightening or overwhelming;
• We’re scared because we don’t know what to do with these feelings;
• We get temporary relief from certain behaviors or life circumstances;
• We have no role models to guide us;
• Our schools and families don’t teach us how to be with feelings;
• Everything about our post modern, feel-good, device-driven culture encourages us to deny the existence of our feelings.

If the fire for happiness burns in you, there will be a moment of courage when you stop. Rather than playing out the avoidance habit once again—with the same unhappy result—you stop and let yourself be still.

You step away from the force of conditioning that carries you, feeling the urge that appears, but not acting on it.

You slow things down enough so you can see and feel the truth of your experience…with great kindness and compassion.

Before now, you’ve been a victim of unseen forces within you. Once you realize what’s been driving you, the possibility for freedom dawns.

You discover you can stay still and care for the feeling rather than being carried away by habits. It’s the end of the inner war when we recognize what arises in us and embrace it just as it is.

It’s the beginning of the sacred return to yourself…to presence…to the fullness of being…

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“If only my mind would give me a break.” “How do I get these thoughts to stop?”

These are frustrations I hear a lot from people trying to find peace from their thoughts.

Well, I’ll let you in on a profound secret: you can’t make your thoughts stop.

And the more you try, the more you’re actually focusing on the process of thinking and creating an inner war—you against your thoughts.

Remember: what you resist persists. Wanting your thoughts to stop is resisting them. You’re in a state of non-acceptance. Here they are, churning in your mind, and you’re wanting the moment to be different than it is.

Trying to get rid of thoughts actually energizes them—and it won’t bring you the peace you’re looking for.

But don’t lose hope…because freedom from the pull of thinking is absolutely possible. And it’s about shifting the relationship you have with your thoughts—not about getting rid of them.

Without realizing it, most of us are attached to the content of our thinking.

• We’re conditioned to go to our minds for information and guidance;
• We give our attention to every doubt and worry;
• We believe the thoughts that tell us we’re inadequate and unlovable.

No wonder we feel stressed!

There’s a completely different way to relate to our thinking other than believing it, which is to lose interest in what thoughts are telling us. That way you’re not fighting with thoughts or wanting them to go away.

They can be present, but you’re just not paying attention to what they’re saying.

Practice loosening your attachment to thoughts. Because once you’re less connected with the content of your mind, you’re more available to listen, engage, be curious, feel, expand, and fully live your lovely life.

Here are four insights about thoughts that might help…

#1: You are not your thoughts.

You existed long before you started thinking. There’s an innocent, original part of you that is naturally alive and aware, that has nothing to do with your thoughts.

Here’s an experiment for you to try: pretend that you’re not defined by your thoughts, and see if you’re still here. Get to know this “you” who is alive prior to your thoughts.

Your thoughts may tell you that you’re unworthy and limited, and they may tell you that you’ll be lost if you don’t worry incessantly. But without buying into these beliefs, you’re still here—and you’re way more at peace.

#2: You can choose how you relate to your thoughts.

Since your thoughts are not who you are, you can choose how much attention you give them. You can live in the stories they tell you, or you can see them as mental chatter, a droning sound in the background, that has no meaning whatsoever.

#3: You don’t have to believe the content of your thoughts.

Take a look at the content of your thoughts. If thinking is a problem for you, you will find that your thoughts are quite negative. They tell you to constantly be on guard so you can’t enjoy life. They fill you with doubt and concern. They judge everyone and everything.

They make you believe you’re a fraction of your true magnificence.

Bringing in insight #2, you can choose how you relate to these thoughts. Do you want to magnify this content and make it your reality? Or do you want to drop the thought-created reality and see things as they truly are?

#4: You can function very well in life without paying attention to thinking.

Most thinking is negative and useless. It’s just not needed. Sure you need thoughts to follow directions or plan a trip. But it is not your birthright to be stuck in ruminating thoughts that spin around and make you feel anxious.

When you don’t pay attention to thinking, you’re open to life as it is.

• You have a fresh perspective on everything;
• You relate to others with your heart open instead of with fear, lack, or judgment;
• You take things as they come without resisting them.

Why not try it?

Let go of your attachment to thinking and expand into the unknown, overflowing with potential. You’ll discover a whole new way of being…

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If you’re truly interested in living the freedom that you know is possible, take a look at all the ways you keep yourself separate from it.

And for some of us, one of those ways is to live in regret of our past actions.

Here’s the scenario. Whether you intended to or not, you’ve done something that hurt someone else or yourself, and you just can’t let yourself off the hook. You can’t stop repeating the story of what you think you did wrong in your mind, convincing yourself that you’re damaged and unworthy.

It’s like you’ve created a movie of what happened, and you keep pushing play—over and over. And the images of what you did and the choices you made recycle in your mind nonstop.

If this is what’s happening for you, something needs to change for you to come to peace. If you continue to punish yourself and believe that you’re bad to the core, you’ll live in this shame forever.

So how to release yourself from the prison of feeling badly about your past actions? How to stop being hijacked by thoughts about what you should have done?

There’s no easy fix, no magic suggestion that will take away all the pain. But there’s much for you to consider and practice to begin to move toward peace.

Be Open to Peace

If you’re stuck in shame and self-blame, see if you can find at least a sliver of openness to explore the possibility of finding peace within.

Imagine seeing your life 5 or 10 years into the future. Do you still want to be feeling the shame you’re feeling now? If not, then contemplate the possibility of finding a way through it. You’ve suffered enough already.

Understand and Accept

If you keep repeating the story about what you shouldn’t have done, you’re resisting the facts of what happened. No amount of wishing will change the past. The invitation then is to accept what happened and do your best to understand why things unfolded the way they did.

Maybe you were caught in a moment of unconsciousness. Maybe you weren’t thinking clearly because you were taken over by a pattern from your childhood to protect yourself or seek attention or approval. Maybe fear or anger was in charge when you did the things you regret. Take your time to go inward and see what you discover.

No matter what happened, accept the facts with compassion and understanding. Know that we all get caught in emotions and unconscious patterns and couldn’t have done any better at the time. And now you have a tremendous opportunity for growth and freedom.

Bring Kindness Toward Yourself

The story of regret is filled with self-judgment and self-criticism. These are extremely harsh ways of treating yourself in your mind and will keep you stuck. Start to tell yourself that right now, if you don’t listen to your mind, you are okay—and it’s okay to feel that way. You’re here, breathing.

Notice the feelings that are present. Find some space from the story they tell you and create a field of tenderness that welcomes all that arises. Breathe with the sensations in your body as they come and go.
Be an understanding friend to yourself rather than a judge and enemy.

Make Amends

Do whatever is necessary to make amends. This brings the focus from your thoughts about yourself to the other person and the relationship. Acknowledge the pain you feel, then apologize, return goods or money, listen deeply to what the other wants to share, or somehow make it up to those who were hurt as best as you can.

And if you can’t do that in person, write a letter even if you don’t send it or have a friend role play with you so you can say the words of apology. Create a ritual that lets you say, “I’m sorry,” and feel it in your bones.

Learn from Your Experience

When you look beyond the pain and regret, you’ll realize that you’ve learned some valuable life lessons. Be clear about what these are and live them. This is the essential step that sets you free because it changes the way you show up in the world.

Know what your values are and step up into acting in alignment with them. Make conscious choices from a place of wisdom, compassion, and understanding for yourself and others.

Even if you’ve messed up in a big way, you don’t have to hold onto the pain forever. Let the moments of your life be a testimony to conscious living and deep compassion for the suffering of all.

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“When we slow down, quiet the mind, and allow ourselves to feel hungry for something that we do not understand, we are dipping into the abundant well of spiritual longing.”
~Elizabeth Lesser

When I feel into how we all live day-to-day, it seems to me that we’re moving way too fast.

We’re in our heads with spinning thoughts, our actions are pressured, and we’re ahead of ourselves and missing out on being present in the moments of our lives.

Constantly on our devices, we’re living in a culture of distraction.

We tend to go through our days like robots, unaware of the reality of what’s actually happening. There’s no room for inner reflection or just being. We’ve lost connection with ourselves…and life…

And if you’re like me, you feel ungrounded, anxious, and just plain tired.

What are the effects of this way of living?

• Lost in compulsive behavior, there’s no space to feel ourselves and our emotions;
• We’re so distracted that we avoid intimacy with others;
• We feel confused and uncertain;
• With our attention in our heads, we’re disconnected from the deep inner knowing of what’s true and real.

And we think this is how life has to be.

If you’re interested in peace, if silence is calling you, if you just want to rest, then maybe it’s time to consider……slowing……down……

When you notice you’re following your mind, take a slow and conscious breath… Slow down your movements…shine the light of awareness on what’s here right now…

You’re entering the sacred space of your present moment experience.

Without the veil of stressful thinking, feel what’s alive in this moment…

• Love what’s present in your body…the tensions and vibrations that want space to be…
• Open to what you notice through your five senses…
• Use fewer words and listen deeply…
• Be aware of the silent space in-between…beyond any ideas about your personal identity.

Slowing down invites you into waking up in this very moment… You know the formless vibration of present moment awareness, while holding all of your humanness in a loving embrace.

You feel the depths of what’s here, right into the very core of your belly, and meet it all with infinite kindness and eyes wide open.

Life in this moment is so incredibly rich, no matter what is showing up. But you’ll only know that by slowing down.

Can you expand into all that’s here with curiosity, wonder, and heart?

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At its core and in its natural state, life is simple—now in this moment, and always.

There is a just what’s here and happening…with no commentary, judgment, or resistance that complicates matters.

It’s like stripping the moment down to the barest experience of what is: just seeing, reading, breathing, sitting, hearing, talking, moving, life emerging…

But don’t take my word for it. See if this is true in your own experience. Take a look right now and delete the mind’s interpretations. What is actually here in your direct experience?

Continue with this contemplation, and you’ll start to notice how simple life is.

If something needs to be taken care of, it will become obvious. If you’re hungry, you’ll get something to eat. If the car is running out of gas, you’ll stop at a gas station. If someone asks you for help, you’ll say yes or no.

Can you imagine carrying out these activities without paying attention to the spinning commentary of the mind?

There is a natural, utterly simple unfolding of things that is completely apparent—when you can see it clearly without the mind’s complications.

But for many of us in our normal everyday lives, we’re distracted by mental and emotional noise…and we overlook the simplicity of the moment.

• We go into our heads trying to solve endless problems;
• We feed anxious stories about things not going our way;
• We live in fear that we won’t get the attention and approval we crave;
• We’re fearful of not being perfect and just being human.

The mind entices you into believing that the present moment is lacking. We believe that whatever is happening now isn’t good enough—and we’re not good enough.

And this leads to “if only” thinking. “If only I had more confidence, if only everything was just right and I felt comfortable.”

Then you scramble to find solutions to this perceived lack. And things quickly get complicated.

See how your thinking spins out of control? You move away from reality (so simple in its clarity) and into the made-up stories in the mind.

But here’s what’s always possible—to rediscover the simplicity of the moment.

Ignore the commentary that takes you away (blah, blah, blah…) and return to the bare experience of what’s actually here. This is where you find freshness and insight, “Oh, it’s just a thought! Oh, there’s nothing here that needs to be fixed.”

Peace and ease are always available—in this and every moment. But you won’t know that if you’re lost in the complexity of your thoughts.

Disregard the content of your thinking—just turn away from it—and you’ll discover the peace you’re looking for. If there is action to be taken, you can trust that you’ll know just what to do.

Keep it simple, and you might have the brilliant insight that nothing is missing and things right now are perfectly okay as they are.

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Freedom. Isn’t that something we all want more of? Who doesn’t long to feel relaxed, peaceful, unstuck, and open to everything.

How can we find this ease and flow? It helps immensely to discover that there is great value in hard things.

Have you noticed that we tend to avoid our most challenging feelings and reactions? We drink, smoke, snack, get busy, call someone, procrastinate, ruminate, or worry. We get caught in addictions, relationship drama, and stress of all kinds.

The purpose of these strategies is to keep us from feeling pain. And in the avoidance of pain, we stay stuck in a limited view of ourselves and life, denying the peace and contentment that are rightfully ours.

Take a look at any problem that persists in your life, and I can guarantee that there are unexplored feelings driving it.

If you truly want to live in freedom, openness, and full aliveness, then learn how to be with challenging experiences. When they’re met with love and care, they lose their power, they relax, and the expansiveness of your true nature is revealed. Consider these pointers, and watch your life transform.

Be willing. Find openness within yourself to be with whatever experiences arise in you. Vow to stay open to them, even if it’s hard.

Know your strategies. Reflect on your particular avoidance strategies. Become an expert in what triggers them and how they play out in you so you can know when you’re turning away from hard experiences.

Peel the onion. Start with any emotional reaction, and create a spacious field of compassion in your mind and heart to let the feelings be present as they are. Let go of your thoughts about the feelings, and bring your attention to the actual direct experience of them. Give them the open, loving space they need. Then keep going whenever feelings arise.

Be aware of the sensations in your body. Make space for movement, blockages, energy, and whatever wants to come.

Can you feel the freedom in this approach? Eventually, you might notice something miraculous. What you thought was hard and even scary is just more experience arising and passing on. It’s energy, bodily movement, the release of breath, maybe tears, but not something that you need to avoid.

Turning inward to welcome what is puts you in harmony with things as they are, and you are bound to notice a number of happy side effects.

Effortlessness. Being afraid of our feelings and using strategies to avoid them is draining. We are constantly on the lookout for any shred of discomfort, then scurry to deflect from it. These inner dynamics sap energy, and simply being restores it.

Truth. Strategies to avoid our feelings contain within them a subtle lie. We are lying to ourselves about the full reality of what is happening in the moment, and at some level we know it. Telling the truth about what’s actually here might be difficult, but what we gain is a deep sense of integrity.

Transformation. When we offer our loving attention to the most buried fragments of ourselves, we can’t help but change. When we are no longer driven by unconscious forces, we feel relaxed, whole, loving, and clear.

Empathy. When we welcome our feelings with love and acceptance, we connect with the universality of life beyond our personal selves. Fear is not just “my fear,” but we realize that everyone feels it. Same with sadness, loss, shame, or inadequacy. We naturally feel tender toward others who are suffering.

We don’t need to go searching for difficult experiences. As Adyashanti says in the quote above, life offers them to us for our awakening. Invite yourself to discover great value in hard things. You’ll be grounded, present, and available to all.

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In some ways, it’s a dark time in the history of the world and humanity.

It seems easy to look around and find a lack of compassion for human suffering and our planet, war and conflict, and desperate, disenfranchised people just trying to survive.

The news is full of stories that highlight the violence, death, and despair that result from choices people make based on fear and delusion.

It’s not too difficult to get sucked into a feeling of helplessness, resisting the world as it is and wanting it to change for the better. Can’t people just come to their senses and be kind to each other?

Staying stuck in this story of resistance, if you’re like me, you’ll feel a knot of tension inside that sits there, unmoving, every time you read another report of struggle and misery somewhere in the world.

So what to do? Do we wait—and hope—for things to change?

Certainly, if you feel moved to take action for the betterment of humankind, then do that. Volunteer, join an organization you support, donate money, and use your vote wisely.

But there’s something more essential that is possible, and that is to realize that every single choice you make matters.

Can you control how those in power govern? Can you end a war or feed those who are starving? For the most part, no.

But what you absolutely can do is turn your attention inward, shine the light of awareness on your own conditioned patterns and confused thinking, and live in the world as a beacon of clarity and love. By doing so, you’re ending the inner war with your own experience.

This is what heals division and brings the objects of the world—including you—to be more in alignment with their natural state of peace and love.

You might feel helpless about the challenges in the world. But do what is available to you: be an activist for your own freedom.

Commit to waking up out of the dream that makes you believe you’re wounded and small. Bring open and loving presence to what’s happening in the world and your reactions to it. And reflect back acceptance, compassion, wholeness, and possibility.

This is what changes everything.

When you’re freed up from the trap of the conditioned mind, you naturally become open and generous. No longer caught behind self-imposed barriers, you see love everywhere, which informs your every action.

All things in form are an expression of the underlying fabric of universal consciousness. That’s why what you do matters to the whole—your actions and way of being bring about either more suffering and fear or more surrender into love.

This is the fierce choice that you’re actually making in every moment of your life.

Stuck in mental stories that take you away from the present moment, you’re self-focused and resistant, believing you lack what you need to be happy.

But as you see through this distorted fear-based thinking and move beyond it, you become an open vessel for the free flow of undivided consciousness. You’re available to welcome everything unconditionally in love.

The ills of the world are created by people, just like you, who make decision after decision from personal pride, need, lack, and fear. This is what glorifies the belief in the separate self.

Know that you are born of love, just like every other being in the universe. Live consciously as this love—as much as possible—and you are doing your part to change the world.

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Many of us long to awaken to our true nature, and we have ideas about what that will be like.

We think that if we’re awake, we’ll be in a state of bliss forever, life will always flow smoothly, or we’ll never again experience difficult feelings.

And here’s the truth: bliss doesn’t last, life presents challenges, and the range of human feelings arises.

But what’s absolutely amazing is this. In this moment and any moment, it’s possible to find our way out of suffering and into peace.

That’s why the magic is in the moment.

You don’t need to be concerned with changing who you are or figuring out how to solve all your problems. You can’t erase your painful past. These goals will keep your mind busy forever and won’t bring you the happiness you long for.

The way out of suffering is much simpler, and it boils down to the moment.

The only time you’re suffering—is now, and the only time you can let go of the turmoil of personal stories—is now.

Right now in this moment, you can relax away from the stressful mind and lean into the open, loving space of being aware that is completely at ease with things as they are.

Right now, without any thoughts, you’re not broken and there’s nothing wrong. You discover that you are present, whole, loving, and peaceful…

And this is what’s true in any moment.

Remembering that the magic is in the moment, when you wake up to realize that the conditioned mind has taken you over, it’s cause for celebration. Now you are aware of yourself again!

Here is your golden opportunity to stop and recognize what is present for you.

• Instead of feeding the story of lack and limitation for one more second, you become aware of the breath;
• Instead of embellishing the drama of your emotions, you expand your attention to be aware of physical sensations appearing in your body;
• Then letting go of the breath and physical sensations, you rest in presence, coming home to the peace of your true nature.

You may have this opportunity hundreds of times a day, and that’s perfectly okay. Just do it…in this moment…and the next…and the next…

This is how problems and habits change. There’s nothing to analyze, nothing to solve or figure out. And it takes no time at all.

Realize that you’re suffering, right now, because your attention has grabbed onto personal thoughts and feelings. Then, unhook your attention and let it rest here in presence, unattached to any personal concept.

Your mind will tell you that finding freedom in the moment isn’t enough. It will say that you should always be peaceful and that these mental habits shouldn’t recur. It will scold you for not practicing enough or doing it right.

The mind is running on the assumption that if you were truly free then painful and stressful thoughts would never again visit you. But none of this is true.

Conditioned programming recurs—that’s its nature. It pulls you into ruminating about the past and worrying about what might come.

But enter the timeless now, and you’re home. It’s eternally here, the all-encompassing, naturally welcoming field of presence that holds everything with love.

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What is it like when we’re caught in a busy mind? We’re flooded with thoughts that doubt, compare, judge, worry, and ruminate.

And what do we do with all these thoughts? Repeat the same stories over and over, engulf others in unnecessary details, and compulsively share our self-doubt, seeking advice from anyone who will listen.

I was once in the courtyard of a yoga studio waiting for a daylong training to start. I struck up a conversation with a young woman near me who proceeded to ask questions nonstop. How many people will be here? What will the teacher be like? Will we have any breaks? How hard do you think this will be?

My answer to all of these questions was, “I don’t know.” And I felt compassion for the anxious reality she was creating for herself.

Isn’t this how many people live their everyday lives? Attached to thinking, swirling around in the contents of the mind, trying to know what can’t be known, trying to control what can’t be controlled.

Would you like to know why you’re not peaceful and happy? You’re somehow believing the thoughts in your mind. It’s as simple as that.

So let’s open to discovering that there’s a whole other relationship you can have with your busy mind—and it’s available to you now and in every moment.

It’s a way of relating to your mind that frees you from stressful thinking. It’s kind…and supportive of your peace and happiness. Sound good? Here’s how:

• Experiment with turning your attention away from what your thoughts are telling you—because they’re limiting, false, and mostly unnecessary;
• Lose interest in your thinking—because it undermines your well-being;
• Feel into what’s happening in your body as a way to reconnect with presence here and now.
• Rest in the open space that remains—once you stop engaging with the content of your thoughts.

Your attention is a precious resource, and what you pay attention to is what becomes your reality.

The beauty of losing interest in your thinking is this: you’re not resisting your thoughts or trying to get rid of them. You’re not efforting to make them more positive.

You simply stop giving thoughts your attention.

A peaceful mind is not muddied by excessive thinking. It’s infinitely curious, unendingly open, fundamentally unattached, and at ease with not knowing.  Thoughts come, but they’re not given the time of day.

Turn your attention away from your mind and into the lived reality of this moment. What is here right now? What is fresh and alive?

You’ll discover the peace you long for, outside of your busy mind, right here waiting for you…

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Do you find yourself getting stuck in the same thought patterns, emotions, or behaviors over and over?

• You keep ruminating about your life purpose;
• You’re sad because nothing goes your way;
• You’re relationships feel unsatisfying and you can’t figure out why;
• You carry around your feelings about things that happened in your past.

Then perhaps a trauma-informed view will help you.

“Trauma-informed” is a phrase I’ve been hearing a lot recently. It offers an invitation to view our human lives through the lens of early trauma—how the unresolved feelings from our experiences when we were young show up in our life situations now.

“Trauma-informed” is wide-reaching. It can apply to ourselves, others, our relationships, our choices…and includes how conditioned ways of being were passed through the generations in our families and appear in our culture and society as a whole.

Are you interested in understanding the root of wars, political problems, climate change, and social issues? Consider the trauma-informed view, and a lot will be illuminated.

Some people say that it’s not what’s wrong with you…it’s what happened to you. And I would go further to add that it’s not just about the facts of what happened…it’s your reaction to them…how what happened back then still lives in your body, mind, and emotions. That’s what gets triggered now.

Years ago, I worked with someone who was trying to quit smoking. When we started untangling what was behind the urge to smoke, his whole history around the stress he lived with as a child was revealed.

If what you feel now is loneliness, exhaustion, persistent problems in relationships, a tendency to feel hurt or rejected…if you engage in any compulsive behaviors…these are all indicators that a young part of you is activated. What’s happening now is triggering a reaction to similar events from the past.

From the trauma-informed view, there is no such thing as an overreaction. It might look like someone is reacting way too strongly to the current situation. But once the roots of the reaction are unearthed, the way the feelings are expressed makes complete sense.

Why is it useful to include early trauma in our exploration of awakened living? Because any emotional reactions we have are opportunities for greater freedom.

• We notice them with curiosity rather than ignoring them or playing them out unconsciously;
• We turn toward ourselves which means we stop waiting for others to change so we can feel whole;
• We bring loving acceptance to the young parts of ourselves that have been activated;
• We have the space to be fully alive in the present, including all that appears, rather than being driven by our unexamined emotions.

If we want to know the deepest peace that is the foundation of every moment, then we need to understand how we’re taken away by longstanding conditioned patterns appearing now.

And if we don’t, we’re engaging in spiritual bypass, where we use the idea of spiritual awakening to overlook our need- and fear-based tendencies.

Opening to everything, we get to be curious about our present moment experience. Become familiar with the signs of stress in your nervous system and the cycling thoughts that won’t leave you alone. Be aware when you feel unsafe, shut down, or needy.

Then let these experiences be here…as they are…in the loving spaciousness of your true nature. That’s how these inner knots gradually become free.

Digesting early trauma is a rich path that takes time and skill. Don’t hesitate to reach out for a therapist or join a healing community that feels welcoming and safe.

And when you’re committed to this path, here’s what’s in store for you. Little by little, your life force is released from the emotional hooks from the past.

Now you’re available to live fully—your birthright—with creativity, inspiration, gratitude, and love.

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Let’s start by contemplating some common situations that arise in everyday life.

Anne gets frustrated every time her husband walks through the door and doesn’t give her a hug before moving onto other things.

Robert feels disappointed when the phone call he’s been waiting for never comes.

Melanie feels tense every time she reads the news.

These common situations leave us batted about by our reactions, feeling that something isn’t right, while what we really want is to feel okay inside.

Anne needs her husband’s behavior to change so she can feel loved. Robert needs that phone call so he can stop feeling disappointed. And Melanie needs better news so she can feel at peace.

Their happiness is attached to things they can’t control. And this is a setup for unhappiness.

Here’s a simple but brilliant truth—and it’s one that we can bring to our in-the-moment experience over and over.

The world is as it is. People do what they do. Things happen as they happen, and there are no mistakes. And our ideas about what should happen have little to do with it.

People aren’t wrong and the world isn’t wrong. It’s just how it is. Even if some of the things that happen are quite upsetting, this is a truth that doesn’t change. Things are as they are.

So if we don’t have control over things external to us—if we can’t manifest a world of people and situations that fulfill our every desire—then how can we be happy and peaceful?

The one amazing, life-changing option that we always have is to turn our attention away from our thoughts and the outer world and in toward ourselves to meet our inner reactions with loving acceptance.

The source of our discontent is not in what happens—it’s in our reactions to what happens. Underneath the stressful situations and unfulfilled desires are tender places of fear and longing.

While we’re busy in our heads hoping to be loved, wanting others to change, or wishing the news would improve, we miss ourselves…the tension in our bodies, the persistent anxiety, and the young parts that need our loving attention.

Our thoughts mostly tell us what is not okay and what needs to be fixed or changed….so don’t look for peace and happiness there… But opening to our feelings with love and kindness, we discover a whole new way of being with our experience.

We start by becoming peaceful with what arises in us, and eventually our view of the world changes to one of compassionate understanding…for ourselves and everyone else. We have the space to flow with life…

• Receiving rather than resisting;
• Welcoming in love rather than fixing or improving;
• Being curious.

Exploring even deeper, we discover the underlying, stable formless reality that is already whole, fulfilled, and complete. Resting here in this spacious presence…allowing everything, resisting nothing…there’s peace…

Looking outward into the world to find ways to feel better is one of the many strategies we use to avoid our inner experience. Although it might work for a while, ultimately we will become aware of the pain of our feelings again.

But turn toward yourself with love and openness, and miracles happen. Finally, you’re connected, alive, real, and at peace.

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