Five ways to follow what delights your heart

I don’t remember the first time I paused and softly smiled upon hearing the word, “delight.”  Maybe it was when my mom said, “How about you write what’s on your heart and call it ‘Gems of Delight’?”  As moms usually do, she knew what was on my heart before I could consciously name it.

Delight.

“Our true nature is filled with delight,” I wrote on the Barefoot Barn’s website nine years ago and it is still there today.  Look at any little kiddo.  Everything delights them – everyday things like the “magic” of peek-a-boo, their own toes, your silly faces, the dog’s huge tongue, going big poops in the potty…you name it.  Delight can be lowkey, content, an inner soft smile.  It doesn’t have to be verbose or grand.  Just a deep sense of lightness and contentment.

Delight FEELS good.  When we take delight in something, we feel connected and content.  Why?  All those great “feel good” hormones running through us…especially oxytocin, the “connecting” hormone.  Delight is good for us!

When we realllly tune inward and ask ourselves, “what delights my heart?” and we begin to get glimmers of what that is, as we follow those gems, we align ourselves with our true nature.  We actively and intentionally manifest those delights in our everyday life.

Read that again!  Aligning yourself with what delights your heart enables  you to intentionally and actively manifest these delights in your EVERYday life.  Not just on some Caribbean vacation.  Not just on the weekends, or date night, or summer break.  But every day.

credit: thislifewellness.com

And what happens?  The angst within us dissipates.  A deep sense of contentment springs from us while at the same time, we feel a sense of aliveness.  We live more connected to our Self and our dear ones.  We stop listening to the voices of our past, our pop culture, and we begin to learn that the “voice within” — the small still voice that turns us to what we truly delight – is the still voice of the Divine.

And we begin to transform our EVERYDAY lives – with this moment, this breath, this one decision.

And…get this…we inspire others to follow what delights THEIR hearts!

A true happiness takes up residence in our souls and begs us to share it with the world. Our very presence has the power to inspire others and our delight naturally spills out into our world. We transform suffering and manifest change by our very presence and simple acts of compassion.

THIS IS HOW WE TRANSFORM OUR WORLD.

So, here are five ways to follow what delights your heart:

1.  Pause.  Cultivate pausing in your day.  Here’s a post on the Sacred Pause.  Pausing enables us to regroup, get grounded, and focus on what’s most important instead of getting swallowed up in the abyss of Pinterest, Facebook, and the myopic focus that comes from being in stress mode.  Pausing throughout your day gets you in the habit of allowing your nervous system to ‘rest and digest.’

2. Go barefoot.  Go outside, feel your feet on the earth…in the green grass, in the mud.  Breathe in delight.  Breathe out gratitude.  Look around you. Notice all the beautiful simple delights right here for you to see!

3.  Share it.  Had a moment today where you just beamed with delight?  Did one of your kiddos do something that made you deeply smile?  Share it.  Tell your coworkers.  Post it on Facebook.  Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh often talks about sharing your delights, the goodness in your life, walking on the earth imprinting your delights not your woes on the earth.  Sharing further strengthens that neuropathway of “noticing the delight” in your life.  It also inspires others to do the same.

4.  List it.  Get out a piece of paper (and some art stuff if you have the energy!).  Without activating the “rational” brain, just write your responses to this question:  “what delights my heart?”

5.  Follow it.  If drawing delights your heart, draw.  If baking delights your heart, bake.  If giggling and connecting with your little ones delights your heart, get off the computer and go find your kiddos.  Whatever delights your heart, begin it.  In little ways.  Small ways.  Don’t make big lofty goals.  The brain loves to make pathways — when you “accomplish” something, you feel good about it.  The brain wants to repeat that.  So even after you are done reading this – commit to following what delights your heart in your next breath.  Even if it’s visualizing that canvas you’ve always wanted to paint or you pause and look at your kiddo and say, “You rock” because it delights you to connect with your children…do it.  You’ll feel good.  Your brain will want to repeat it.

Blessings of delight,

Lisa A. McCrohan

Visit us at the Barefoot Barn for body-centered psychotherapy, mindfulness coaching, yoga, workshops, and works of art to inspire more delight, compassion, and connection in our everyday lives.  ** Are you a parent?   I do mindful coaching over the phone.

Mama, got self-compassion?

Caring for ourselves IS caring for others.  We all have heard of the “airplane rule” — put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others.  Every single workshop or class I teach, every single person I see in counseling, we practice self-compassion.  It is the basis for how we treat others, including our dearest ones.

When we are kind to ourselves and well-resourced, we are able to be more mindful and soulful in our interactions with others.  When we regard ourselves — every part of ourselves — with deeeeep love, we are able to more fully extend that regard to those we love.  When we see ourselves through the eyes of compassion, we can see others with those same soft, kind, sparkling eyes.

This weekend, dear ones, please… get resourced.

Notice what you say to yourself.

Notice how you tend to yourself — how you brush your hair, what you read or watch, what you put into your body, how you breathe.

Find what nourishes you, what enlivens you — in little doses…because that’s how we transform our lives..in moments — by incorporating little moments of Sacred Pausing and kindness to ourselves in the daily hustle and bustle of our days.

By transforming our moment-to-moment experience and soaking ourselves in self-compassion, this is how we create a more compassionate home and world.

Tips for Parenting with Compassion #6: Gotta go wild

By dontexplode, flicker

I’ve noticed this: many of us are uncomfortable with our kiddos “going wild.” For some time I’ve been noticing myself. Noticing how I get “uncomfortable” when the energy gets a bit high and I start getting on the kiddos to “bring it down.” Sure, it’s appropriate to help our kiddos learn how to self-regulate – how to go from sad or mad to “Okay” again, and from way hyper and over-stimulated to calm. But I’ve noticed how I tend to jump in too quickly to “bring it down.”

Why is that? Why are some of us uncomfortable with our kiddos “going wild”? What is it in our culture, our times?

I have distinct memories of me and friends “going wild” – jumping on a couch, hanging off a tree, playing any kind of running and jumping and wrestling game you could come up with. And the parents (aunts, uncles, neighbors, my parents) let us go wild. By doing so, I got out anything that was pent up and then naturally, organically, brought myself back into calm. I learned how to self-regulate.

Ok, sure, parents stepped in at times to “help” us do that. But I don’t think they parented in a culture that was really uncomfortable with “wild.” I mostly remember being given the freedom within limits to just “bust loose.” I don’t have any memory of my parents hovering over me, telling me to “be careful” or “bring the energy down.” I don’t remember feeling “squelched” or “contained.” Maybe that’s why I didn’t freak out when I got to college. I didn’t need to “bust loose” and go to an extreme.

I guess it’s “welcome to helicopter parenting” today! Many of you have heard me say this: I am taking micro step to micro-manage my kids less. I’m being mindful of that uncomfortable feeling rising up in me and just noticing: “Is this about me or my kiddos?”

I check in: “are they having fun? Are they hurting anyone? Is the energy still positive?”
And if the answer is: “everyone is ok and having fun,” I’m dealing with MY own stuff…and breathing. A lot of breathing and letting go.

What are we so worried about? How we look/appear to others? If our kids will be these untamed, wild animals who have no chance to do well in kindergarten, let alone focus enough to get into Harvard?

My son’s pre-k teacher tells me how A sits for circle time, he can focus, he’s starting to read and can concentrate for long periods of time, and he is kind to his classmates. Lisa, don’t worry!

Maybe it’s because we parents need to “go a bit wild.” No – a lot wild! Maybe we need to jump and dance around – at home, at church, and with our friends. Shoot, even with our spouses! Maybe we are scared of the “wild parts” within us.

I’m noticing that as I go a bit wild, I ease up on and allow my kiddos to go wild. Let A. climb the fence. Let little C. jump on A. and wrestle like little tiger cubs. Let them chase each other with pillows. I’ve noticed that when I do this, yes, there are times I do need to step in. But often they end up coming down on their own.

Case in point: the other day we were driving home from somewhere. A. and C. started singing. Soon enough, they were belting songs – each a different one because C. can’t talk yet – at the top of their lungs. I noticed the discomfort within me. I wanted to say, “Hey guys, bring it down. Let’s chill out now.” But I looked back and I saw their faces just beaming. They were estatic. Not over-stimulated or too hyper. Just having a fabulous time.

I let it be. I thought, “Here’s my break! There’s no fighting, no hungry kiddos asking for snacks, no tears.” I put down my window to feel the cool breeze. A few minutes later, it was calm…and quiet. “Mommy,” I hear from the backseat, “Look.” I look back and A. and C. are holding hands. All on their own.

So let’s let our kiddos go a bit wild without hovering over them. Let’s go wild ourselves!

 

wrestling

being goofy

more wrestling, beginning to settle

settled, connected

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness # 6: Happiness equals having compassion

happiness

Lately I have been reflecting on this theme of “individual happiness” and how it relates to “other people’s happiness.”

We all want to be happy (and healthy). Just look at any bookstore and you’ll see shelves of books about happiness. There is an inner ache, a longing, for a sustained type of happiness.

When asked the purpose to life, even Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, said, “to be happy.”

The question becomes, how can we be happy?

Do we “get happy” by being so focused on self?

I sense an over-abundance of focusing on ourselves in this culture– in the ways that don’t offer a sustained sense of contentment, that take us back into ourselves, so we fold in on ourselves, and our world becomes all about making ME happy.

I’m not talking about denying our needs. But I see how our culture defines happiness as getting what we want when we want it. It bases happiness on the events of our day. It’s about how others act or don’t act. And most importantly, it’s defined as a feeling.

That kind of happiness is always fleeting. It inevitably eludes us.

I get caught up in defining happiness like this. (I often wonder how Buddha would’ve acted if he was a parent! I wonder how Jesus would’ve handled trying to perform the miracle of getting food on the table while holding a crying infant, with a toddler pouring a mound of parmasan cheese on his pasta – and floor, and chair and shirt, a pot boiling over….you get the idea! Surely they would’ve lost it, occasionally.)

But what if we define happiness as a choice rather than a feeling?

a dose of compassion

What if we can accept the presence of whatever shows up – grief, sadness, confusion, boredom, excitement, joy – and allow it to rise into our consciousness, experiencing it fully, allowing it to be, noticing the shifts happening within us without any efforting, and then seeing it move through us to transform the lives around us?

The times, the moments, that this happens, I find myself resting in a sense of peace and contentment. And I find that this sense of contentment organically flows out of me and is offered to those around me (I can laugh at the cheese on the ground and stop to hold little C. instead of rushing to make dinner).

Instead of clinging to, getting caught up in, denying, or pushing away any emotion or thought, if we allow it all to rise and fall on its own, a sustained sense of contentment rises from within us…even just for a moment! AND THEN WE MOVE OUT OF OURSELVES and into the world. What just nourished and sustained us – again, even for a moment – becomes offered and shared with others.

True happiness is a decision, an ability, a skill, and a choice. It is not a feeling. It is not something that happens to us. And it is not something outside of our reach.

It is a decision we make within ourselves to align our actions, thoughts, plans, and words with our true nature. It is an ability we cultivate and skill we hone the more and more we make such a decision.

True happiness is choosing Love, it is choosing compassion – one little decision at a time, one word at a time, one action at a time, one breath at a time, one moment at a time.

holding

When asked how to be happy, the Dalai Lama said, “if you want to be happy, have compassion. If you want others to be happy, have compassion.”

The answer to happiness: compassion.

Choose compassion. When we are frustrated or things aren’t going our way – pause. Take a breath. Let’s give ourselves a dose of kindness. Let’s practice gentleness. A happiness will rise from within us that empowers us, holds us, sustains us, centers us.

seeing

 

As we embrace and are transformed by such a happiness, what organically arises from within us is the desire to move “outside of ourselves” and into the lives of others. As we listen to and act from our seat of compassion by tending to ourselves, a sweetness and lightness softens and fills our hearts. With a full heart, the heart reaches out to share such sweetness. It is as though it cannot and will not be contained within our own selves. It flows out of us as an offering to others.

True happiness – we drink it in and we then share it with others. There is no other way. Self-compassion transforms us, taking us out of our myopic ways of searching for individual happiness. It sustains us. It then flows through us – our smile, hands, tender words – as gift of compassion to others. Just by our presence! I do believe that this is how we transform our planet.

Mindful Moment: Someday

My brother got married this past weekend (elegant. lovely. relaxing leisurely with loved ones).  Waiting for the reception to start, Brian took little C. outside where we just had the ceremony to walk around.  While outside, Brian had the idea to snap a few pictures of him and little C. “walking down the aisle.”

Someday, when little C. isn’t so little anymore and she is getting married, we will pull out these photos.  I can “see” that day in these pictures.  And all of a sudden, time disappears and little C.’s wedding day sits right next to today.  And I can “see” all the years ahead of us – of the first day of school, summers in Boston, catching lightening bugs, falling down, getting back up, a bagillion bath times, first love, going to college, calling to tell me she’s engaged.  And I can “see” all the years behind us — filled with all the memories we are creating today and everyday of her life.

today is the day

let's go honey, take my hand

wait a moment dad

It's ok, sweet love

YESSSS!

you start this new journey with our blessings

here i go!

but not quite yet! take my hand; we still have many, many years together

Everyday Resurrection

Everyday Resurrection

There comes a moment
when you know

that you can no longer keep digging in the past
searching for the magical golden “why”
that you think will finally heal
that one
tender
wound.

There comes a defining moment
when you are standing in the rain
outside your front door
with grocery bags in your hands
hungry, tired, soaking wet

and you see how all these years
you’ve just been running
even if it’s to therapy
you have been running

and you know
that no amount of analyzing it
is going to get you any closer

to being happy

and folding into the arms
that want to hold you
when you open that door.

The small, still voice
within you
just knows
has known
has been whispering to you
late at night for so long:

“There is another way, Love.”

But it is finally today
that you hear her
clear and certain
as the voice
of your true God.

And you know now
there is no going back.
No talking, judging,
trying to fix it, wishing it away.

You are done
wrapping your whole self-concept
around that wound

done believing that
there even is a wound to heal.

You stand there
soaking wet

softening
breathing

softening
breathing

opening up to
the spacious grace of emptiness
now swimming in your chest
with no desire to run and quickly fill it.

You know now what you have to do
when you open that door.

And you softly smile.
Lisa A. McCrohan, copyright. 2011

“…done believing there even is a wound to heal.” Maybe we really are dreaming, like Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book, “The Four Agreements.”  Maybe we really are just asleep like Buddha said.  Maybe we are all imprisoned by these carefully constructed beliefs learned over time that we cling to as truth.  Maybe our way of seeing things, judging things, putting things into boxes are all just illusions.  Maybe there really aren’t any wounds to heal.  And maybe it’s all just a story we keep telling ourselves.

Maybe resurrection isn’t about some big moment that happens after we die in this lifetime.  Maybe it’s an everyday thing.  Yes, everyday resurrection.  Everyday waking up.  Everyday enlightenment.  Maybe it’s about dropping the story we’ve been telling ourselves for years, maybe even decades.  Maybe it’s about allowing those tightly held beliefs, perceptions, emotions to die.  Giving them no more attention or energy and just watching them “poof!” – disintegrate.  And maybe it’s about being in that “spacious grace of emptiness” – the space between something dying and something new emerging.  And just being in that quiet, empty, holy space, paradoxically, filled with, well, Sacred Nothingness.  Not looking back with sorrow-filled eyes at what has died and not eagerly reaching for what may be birthed.  Just being.

How about you? What was your last moment of resurrection, enlightenment, “waking up” in your everyday life?

Eat, Pray, Love: Lent Italian Style!

I love the scene in movie-version of the book Eat, Pray, Love when Elizabeth is in an Italian barber shop with a friend and these old Italian men are talking about how we Americans are always doing, doing, doing. They talk about how every Italian knows the “art of doing nothing.”

I love it: the art of doing nothing.

Don’t you just smile when you read these words?! An image of eating gelato on a warm day in Italy comes to mind. Ahhh, my heart exhales and expands.

Surely THIS is a Lenten practice that can draw us closer to a joyful, fanciful, whimsical…and even downright wise God — the art of doing nothing!

As much as I am mindful of the number of activities our family is involved in, as much as Brian and I have made conscious choices to forgo some great opportunities in order for us to actually BE together as a family (including living and working in the same small town so we don’t spend hours commuting), and as much as I bring attention and intention to my daily life, I STILL find that I am a product of our culture! And we are a culture addicted to hurry. We are addicted to doing. We don’t value doing nothing, we value results. And I fall into this trap all the time.

But the times when I just pause for awhile and do nothing – from napping to just HANGING with my family – I find that balance is restored. I catch up with my own self. I stop and sense the Divine blooming, smiling, dancing, laughing, eating gelato (or JP Licks in Davis Square!), and exhaling ALL AROUND ME. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Ok so, one of my words for the year is soften — I’m softening my grip on that “results” list in my head and even just for the rest of the night (the 20 minutes that’s left of it!), I’m basking in doin’ Lent Italian style — doing nothing.

Now that is meditation. That is prayer.

Good night sweet ones.

Lent: the classic question…revised

Lent starts up this Wednesday. For us Christian/Catholic folks that usually means we ask the classic Lenten question: “What are you giving up for Lent?!”

We say things like our beloved indulgent “chocolate” or our social lifesaver “Facebook.” It is a lovely practice to “go without,” to fast, a practice found in many religious traditions, in order to BE in and FEEL emptiness, allowing God (or Light, Love, Goodness) to “take up residence” in that emptiness…and transform us.

I think the question that comes up for me is not “WHAT am I giving up?” but rather:

“Does this draw me closer to God?”

Yeeeees. Does. this. draw. me. closer. to. God? If that means “giving something up” or fasting from something, go for it.

Often my Lenten practice has not been about giving up sweets or denying myself some physical, emotional, social, or spiritual pleasure. I can be a hard worker, the Capricorn goat pushing a boulder up a hill, taking my responsibilities seriously…too seriously. I have needed to learn to SIT and ENJOY and fully BASK IN activities and relationships that nourish me, that give me pleasure and deepen my capacity for joy. Yes, me learning to PLAY instead of work…that draws me closer to God.

So Lent, for me, has often been a time of engaging in a practice that is pleasurable and nourishing – to my body, mind, heart, or relationships. A practice that nourishes, holds, tends to, and brightens my heart.

This year my friend asked if I wanted to give up sweets with her. “Yes,” I thought, “I do need to lose some extra lbs.!” But then I thought, “Does thinking about extra baby weight really draw me closer to God?!!” And I knew the answer was “no.”

So I sat with what was stirring in me. What emerged: “Soften.”

Soften my judgment of myself and others, soften my approach to taking on the “to do” list, soften my talk and speech, soften my “pushing myself,” soften my attachment to future planning.

This “softening” is both a practice of fasting and of “taking on.” It’s fasting from harshness – those habitual ways of thinking, doing, and relating that are harsh and harden my heart, kill my joy, and push away the Light. It’s “taking on” a mindful way of thinking, doing, and relating that nourishes, soothes, and expands my heart…letting in Light and God’s tender presence.

So I will join my friend in “giving up sweets” not just from the motivation of losing some lbs. but rather from the desire to be “in cahoots” during Lent with a dear friend whose presence in my life nourishes my heart and whose playdates lighten my day. Every time I fast from a sweet, I will think of her. And my heart will smile. And if this means we have a day together of some “mindful indulgence” in chocolate, that’s just what the Big G ordered!

So…what will draw you closer to God this Lenten season? A phone call to a dear friend, giving up chocolate, taking a few mindful breaths before starting your day, giving up harsh ways of treating yourself, skipping to your car???! Do share!

* I’ll be writing a series of posts this Lent about the Lenten season as heart-stirrings emerge! Stay tuned!

NOT Now

I have dreams. Big dreams. Before kiddos, I dreamed of creating the Barefoot Barn.  I wanted to build a barn and retreat center in a beautiful spot surrounded by something vast in nature, create a community of like-hearted folks, and offer workshops and retreats to inspire, uplift, and connect us to our own sense of deep delight, each other, and the world. People would come for dance, dreaming, stillness, community, movement, and meditation. Some would live at the Barn and others would come for a visit. We all would be nourished – hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits..and feel encouraged to share it all with the world.

But then I had two tough pregnancies, two c-sections, walked around sleep deprived, traded in my little two-door Honda Civic for a Honda Odyssey, bought nursing bras, replaced our icecube trays with frozen bags of pumped milk, gained some extra “fluff” around my mid section, and now see going to the grocery store as “alone time.” We don’t live in the country. We don’t own a barn or run a retreat center.

And that Barefoot Barn community? Well, our ‘community’ today is not exactly as I had envisioned it! It’s now composed of playdates, quick calls to dear ones, a half-hour chat at a coffee shop with a friend in between seeing clients, online friends, connecting when I can to other healers and practitioners, a women’s group, and pooooosibly seeing my meditation teacher once a month.

A few times a week, Brian and I try to do a little meditation with our kiddos. The other morning it was just my daughter and I.  My son was at preschool and Brian was at work. I brought the meditation bowl to the floor and let C. explore it. She quickly reached for the mallet and began to softly tap the bowl. She looked up at me. Something in her eyes spoke right to the depths of me:

“Mom, I am your ‘now’ right now.”

Of course I’ve known that. The immediacy demanded by a newborn, sick child, an overflowing toilet with too much toilet paper in it from a very thorough bum-wiping toddler, hungry kiddos demanding dinner – keep me focused on the present, keep me IN the present.

But sometimes in the present my dreams can feel so far off. I read other women’s blogs and hear stories of others living their dreams NOW. I can get discouraged. I can feel torn. I can jump to thinking that being right here in the present moment with wiping dirty bums and working toward my dreams of building the Barn and publishing books are mutually exclusive.

But I KNOW that they are not. What I am doing every day – from plunging the toilet to calling clients with little C. on my hip babbling away while A. is in the background saying “Mom! Mom! Who’s on the phone? I wanna talk!” – somehow IS the path to my dreams. Though many days I don’t see the connection.

That’s when I have to trust that small, still voice rising up out of my discouragement: “Just keep breathing. Just keep doing the next right thing.”

This runs counter to what we moms often hear in this culture: “NOW! Make it happen now! Embrace your dreams! Life is too short! Have it all! Go for it! NOW is the time!”

No. NOT now.

It is not the time right now for us to build the Barn. My dreams right now are about more sleep, half an hour at night to write a poem or call a friend, nourishing our bodies with healthy meals, getting to the Y or walking with a friend. Sometimes that feels like I am giving up, like I’m not actively following my dreams. Sometimes this “being so present in the present” chews me up and spits me back out – exhausted with little energy to even consider dreaming bigger beyond my bed. And I am left wondering when the last time it was that I actually did my hair, had on a shirt that didn’t have baby snot on it, or talked to someone about my hopes, dreams and aspirations. I can feel scattered and unfocused…and waaaay off my path of creating THE Barefoot Barn.

But the other day when C.’s old-soul eyes spoke to me, I knew that somehow just being present in THIS “now” was a pebble on that path to whatever the future may hold – Barn or no Barn.

The “next right thing” in this moment – this now – is sooooooo about letting go of our culture’s way of planning, plotting, doing, reaching for. And more about embracing the mystical way dreams can land right on my doorstep when the time is right…while wiping those little bums, resting my bones, strengthening my body from my c-sections, and jotting down a line of poetry or two before drifting off to sleep.

One evening a few years ago when I was feeling pretty depressed about not working toward building an actual Barn, Brian said to me, “Lis, the Barefoot Barn is wherever WE are.” He’s right. It’s right here in our “now,” though it looks completely different than I had imagined a long time ago!

I wrote about how my 2011 was going to be about softening, strengthening and forgiving. I’m softening my grip on my “future” dreams, strengthening my ability to discover the essence of the Barefoot Barn in my everyday, and forgiving myself for not making it all happen right now.

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #5: How fear dissolves

Last night I had this strange dream. Someone I am close to (not someone I know in my waking life) and I were in prison. Some other inmates were planning to gang up on us and things were about to get ugly. I’ll save you the details, but as things were heating up and I was getting scared, I thought “Lisa, just walk away.”

In the dream, I realized that I didn’t have to engage the gang of inmates, try to muster up brute force, develop a quick plan to high-tail it out of there, or try to talk my way out of it. I could just walk away.

I took my loved one’s hand and said, “Let’s just go.”

Though I was trembling inside, there was a “sureness” deep in me: this is what we had to do…no matter the outcome. Not one of the inmates tried to stop us. Not one snarled at us, jumped at us, or tried to hurt us as we had feared earlier.

Instead, as we began to walk away, one by one each inmate turned into a stone-like structure and began to crumble, falling to pieces, turning into a heap of ash.

Now in that half-awake half-asleep state, the thought popped into my head, “What if this is how it is with anything that keeps us imprisoned? Any fear or habitual way of thinking loses its power and its grip on us once we just decide to stop feeding it…and walk away.”

Instead of mustering up brute strength, developing an intricate plan of attack (or way of trying to keep the fear at bay), or talking ad nausium about it…just get up and walk away. Stop trying to do anything about them and just walk away.

This is similar to what we do in meditation – observing our thoughts (along with sensations and emotions)…seeing them as passing clouds or like leaves floating down a river without engaging them, clinging to them, or trying to stop them. Our fears begin to have less of a grip on us. With no power, they just dissolve.

When I told Brian about this dream, he said this reminded him of a quote from the book, Dune, by Frank Herbert, “I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over me and through me. And when it is gone I will turn the inner eye to see it’s path. And where it is gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”