How do we work skillfully with old hurts and feelings? The first rule is to expect bad feelings to arise. The second rule is to maintain balance. The third rule is to apply mindfulness. If it makes sense to stick with your meditation, you can always switch to using your breath or another anchor when the phrases generate too much feeling. Remember, however, to saturate your mindfulness practice with affection. When labeling is not enough, locate the sensation of the emotion in your body, perhaps in your abdomen, chest, or throat, and describe the feeling tone.

If a core belief arises in meditation, you can label that too. Offer labels in a soft, gentle tone. Go back and forth from the primary object (the phrases) to the most compelling object of awareness (the schema). Sit in the middle of your experience, like the Zen metaphor of a lotus flower in the middle of flames. Old memories may present themselves for mindful awareness. As these events occur, simply note them and return to your mental anchor.

Please don’t make your self suffer by trying too hard to remove your imperfections. As a wise person once said, “Attend to your sensitivity- flower cannot be opened with a hammer.”

~Christopher K. Germer

mesmerized and challenged. from here to there….

inquiry for today~ how many moments require leaning into rather than shying away?

finding home

Do you relate to life as an unfolding mystery and an adventure of discovery? An encounter with your immense capacity for wisdom, love, and experiencing life with intimacy and vitality? We have extraordinary abilities as human beings when we begin to recognize the vitality of certain moments and we bring a consciousness to them. These vitality moments happen in our lives with great regularity and are opportunities for awakening and transformation. We must repeatedly embrace the insecurity of these moments and by doing so come to trust them and so ourselves. In these moments, all we need is knowledge of the next steep and the willingness to take it. Paradoxically, the knowing of what the next step is arises when we have the capacity to rest in not knowing what the next step is and to recognize this is an intimate part of the process of transformation.

~Adyashanti