If you’re human, you experience anxiety. The choice is whether to experience anxiety in the service of neurosis or in the service of waking up. Anxiety is a necessary part of our evolutionary makeup. It prepares us to deal with possible threats to our survival. But today, because most of us are living more than biological lives, our fight/flight/freeze responses are often unskillful and inaccurate. Feeling anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean that something bad is about to happen to us, but it often feels that way. Whether we’re working with our minds spiritually or psychologically, we have a choice. We can invest in denying the truth of our vulnerabilities, thereby gaining pseudo-security at the cost of chronic anxiety. Or we can commit to experiencing our vulnerabilities moment by moment, gaining confidence that we can work with whatever arises- anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, etc. Either way, there’s anxiety. Drop any explanation for your anxiety. Bring attention to immediate, sensation-level experience, with no interpretation or commentary. Where’s the problem or threat? Own the embodied intensity as a valid part of your life and be kind to this experience.   ~Bruce Tift

we forget how to walk into the fire…..the storm……the hard feelings…..

inquiry for today~   where is steadiness of heart without denial?

what is equanimity?

Nothing is easy, but to tell the truth.

The truth of what I see and feel.

This somehow cleanses my eye

and it becomes clear what to do.

In my pain I forget to admit what is

true and things get worse. Because

I don’t want to be sad. I don’t admit

that I already am. Then I feel like

I’m drowning.

Because I don’t want things to change,

I don’t admit that they already have.

Then I feel like the wheel of life

is tearing me apart.

The greatest power we have when

feeling powerless is to admit what

is already true. Then the stepping

stones of Eternity rise out of the

mud, showing us where to go.

~Mark Nepo