When the suffering is overwhelming, we may try to recoil from how bad it feels by numbing our reactions. Many of us survived childhood in just this way. But, ultimately, cutting ourselves off from what is happening locks us Ito fear and makes us unable to see that we might find another way to respond outside the small section delineated by the dots, defined by our assumptions.

Faith, in contrast, reminds us of the ever-changing flow of life, with all its movement and possibility. Faith is the capacity of the heart that allows us to draw close to the present and find there the underlying thread connecting the moment’s experience to the fabric of all of life. It opens is to a bigger sense of who we are and what we are capable of doing.

~Sharon Salzberg

I know I can’t run, and yet I run anyway…

inquiry for today~   what battle are you fighting today?

when I return

Any deep wound or loss can be transformed into fierce grace when we meet the pain with a caring presence. We can find grace I the immediacy of a frightening experience or in working with long-held trauma. Although the pain fo trauma may lead us to believe that our spirit has been tainted or destroyed, that isn’t so. Waves of fear or shame may possess us temporarily, but as we continue to entrust ourselves to loving presence, as we let ourselves feel loved, our lives become more and more an expression of who or what we are. This is the essence of grace- homecoming to who we are.

~Tara Brach