Gem of Wisdom: Remember you are the ocean

Love has the final say.  I do believe that in the end, we come from love and we return to love.  Love and wholeness are our birthright.  But when we are suffering, it can seem like our suffering will never end.  Love, life, hope…all seem to be too flowery, wimpy, or way far off and unavailable.

Think of suffering as a wave.  Regard your anxious thoughts, your bouts of anger, your grief late at night…all as waves.  Sometimes your grief can seem like a wave that goes on forever.  Sometimes your anger seems like a wave that tosses you around.  Sometimes your anxiety feels like a wave that washes over you several times a day.  But…it is a wave.  And it belongs to the ocean.  It rises from (and in) the ocean, and it returns to the ocean.

There is something within you that is bigger than the wave, that holds the wave.  There is something within you that is the ocean.  Call it Self or God…whatever language resonates with you.  But YOU are the ocean. The Love and Light that is within you – that is the ocean.  The “voice within”, the Spirit within, the Sacred Space within you – this is the ocean.  The waves are a part of you, but you are much more than the waves.  You are the ocean.

You call forth the waves.  You call them back to you.  They belong to you.  They may rise and cause some commotion on the surface.  But your deep waters know a deeper truth than the illusion you are temporarily believing in the middle of experiencing a wave.

Go to these deep waters when you are suffering.  Trust the gem of wisdom these deep waters speak to you.  Find a steadiness here that is a refreshing relief from the surface waters that change with every shift in your emotional weather system.

And ultimately, you will experience and know in your bones, you are the ocean.  You are love.  And it IS Love that will have the final say, no matter how strong or long the wave of suffering.

The next time you experience an unpleasant wave and you are suffering, say to yourself:  “I remember now that I am the ocean.”  And watch the wave rise, fall, and return back to you as the ocean. 

It sounds simple.  And it is.  But it’s not easy.  When we are suffering, everything in us wants to tighten up, get control, get a grip.  It takes conscious, mindfulness effort to remember to soften and say to ourselves, “I am not only this wave.  I am the ocean.”  And it takes discipline to say it again and again and again in the throws of the habitual waves we are used to experiencing.  So take heart.  Be gentle with yourself.  And if I can support you with  mindfulness coaching or anything else, please…contact me.

Blessings,

Lisa

** Need support in riding the waves?  I can support you with mindful coaching.  Over the phone, over skype, or in person, I work with folks who want to live with more delight, compassion, and connection in their everyday lives…waves and all!  I am also a body-centered psychotherapist and yoga teacher offering individual sessions and group workshops and retreats.  Visit the Barefoot Barn for more information on our services or contact me with questions, to schedule a time to talk, or learn more.

A poem to me on my 39th birthday

(A poem for me, to me, on my 39th birthday, shared as prayer with you)…

Embodied

The other night, I watched a video of me that Brian recently filmed.
It was me leading a meditation.
Half way through, I stopped and paused it.

I sat there, staring

at the still frame shot of me. The incessant self-doubt
that strangled my joy for years was simply

not true. I could no longer deny what I now saw before me.
Here was the evidence.

“I see it,” I whispered in the silence of my heart,
“I see what my mother has seen all these years.

I am exquisite.

I embody the life I have led,
the years and hours of meditation and kindness and metta,
meltdowns and cries, softening and letting go
practiced on my cushion,
on the earth dancing and sweating my chants to the Divine,

in our kitchen cutting grapes for toddlers,
tired, alone, longing, yearning, returning
always

right here
to my life as practice, in the car

handing back snacks to hungry little ones wondering if I’ll rest today,
in our bed nursing a newborn in the early hours before dawn,
making love to Brian when we should be sleeping but

returning Home to our bodies reciting poetry to the Divine,

rising early with my prayer shawl wrapped around my growing belly,
sitting in silence until a baby cries and my feet take me to them,
somehow in the dark, and my arms become their shawl…

again and again,
through the doubt and the worry
the shame and the regret
the wondering and the wounds
the mistakes and the miraculous
the cooing and the sighing
the obsessing and

the letting go,

returning

again and again
to the Divine
within.

I already embody what I longed for,
what I thought was missing,
what I believed I was ‘not yet:’

I am sensual and beautiful.”

The words escaped my heart before they could be squelched
by analysis or habitual practices of learning to not be powerful…
and know it. Spoken into existence, they flew

out into the world and danced,

and then back into me
as prayer, as breath,
to be breathed

and then exhaled
as blessing.

Lisa A. McCrohan, © 2013

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #16: Drop the perfect, embrace the pleasant

I’m laying here on my yoga mat taking a break snickering to myself as I realize the irony taking place in writing this blog post:  I have a page of notes all crossed off as I try to perfect the opening lines of this post. Yes, perfecting a post about dropping the perfect!  Now there is irony!  And there is being very human.  Yes, this is how our human experience is — our habitual patterns are deeply entrenched within us.  And yet, we can shift these patterns.

This striving for perfection is weaved deep into our culture.  There are times when I think, “No!  Not me!  That may be what mainstream advertising is all about, but I don’t buy it.  I’ve dropped the notion of being perfect!”  And then I go around hurriedly straightening up before company comes over!

Two weeks ago, as Sandy the Hurricane whirled around us,

I was on a seven day silent Buddhist meditation retreat.

Things were definitely not perfect.  No power, no heat.  For four days. Nowhere to go (literally.  There was a huge tree down blocking the one exit to the retreat center) but inside (ha!  Literally.  Inside the building and inside our own hearts, bodies, and minds), unable to command the storm to submit to our demands for sunshine and warmer weather, we got to practice going with the flow.  Watching the wave.  Letting go.  Allowing…..aaaand of course, resisting all that, too!

I noticed again and again the truth of Buddha’s words that we suffer when we resist what is.  We suffer when we get caught up in our internal weather systems of stormy emotions, relentless thoughts, and painful sensations.  We suffer when we want something to be different than what it is, when we try and control EVERYTHING around us — trying to make it “perfectly pleasing” to us — when we keep busy, avoiding the inner wisdom of our bodies whispering to us the the simple and yet often elusive way home to our true self.

I practiced an incredibly simple yet profoundly healing practice on retreat:

noticing the pleasant.  Dropping the “trying.”  Dropping the “perfecting.”  And instead noticing what is pleasant.  Right now.  Right here.  In this moment.  This body — the constellation of ever changing sensations in the body.

This doesn’t ignore the negative.  We aren’t trying to get rid of or deny the negative.  We say, “I see you, too.  You can be here, too.”  And we turn our attention, we shepherd our attention back to the pleasant.

There’s resistance there.  We want to go to the negative.  We are primed to notice the negative, the potentially harmful and dangerous.  But often, the path of this neural circuitry is well worn.  So well worn that we jump on it in a nano second.  And that’s how we can spend most of our day:  going down the path of noticing the unpleasant, what’s wrong, what isn’t perfect…in ourselves, our partners, our children, our neighborhood, our nation, or world.  And reacting.

I don’t know about you, but during the retreat, I noticed how this “going down that negative path” impacted me.  How I got carried away by it.  And how, rather than protecting me from potential danger, was causing harm in the present moment.  Harm to my body, my heart, my mind, and my relationships.

And as I formally practiced more and more shepherding my attention back to what was pleasant, I noticed a peace rising within me.  A “soft delight.”  I noticed my heart opening.  I noticed how I felt a warm glow in my heart — for my own self, my dear ones, those on retreat, and all living beings.

I experienced how, ultimately, it is not WHAT happens in life, but how we relate to it that elicits peace or suffering, liberation or imprisonment.  No matter if we just got a diagnosis that we have two weeks to live or we lost a job or we just had a great time with old friends.  Whatever it is….the story and the specifics don’t create our happiness.  WE do. It’s how we relate to whatever it is that is happening right now within us and around us that creates our happiness.

So…here’s a thought:  maybe try noticing the pleasant for one day.  Shoot, one hour in the day!  Notice what is good and delight-filled, kind or pleasant.  Within you and around you.  And when the old habit of noticing the unpleasant shows up, say hello, allow it to be there, and then just come gently back (again and again) to noticing the pleasant.

I’m in this with all of you!  Many blessings!  (And next time you come over, I won’t hurry and straighten up!  Please notice what’s pleasant in our home…even the mess!)

How to heal by doing very little? Just N.A.P.!

I had a hard day.  You all know how it goes – something doesn’t go as planned, people don’t respond the way you’d like, you were just “off” and didn’t come across as confident or maybe even competent, your child threw up or is having a rough day, someone was critical of you even though you were really really trying to help. We’ve all been there. The specifics don’t matter. (No really, they don’t matter. Keep reading!)

Today, I could feel the sting in my heart, the tightness in my throat, the defeat in my slumped shoulders…all before noon.

I started down the path of aversion and separateness: “Well, I’ll never help them again!”  And judgment: “Who do they think they are?!”

I got into the car.  I sat there.  Tears were welling up.  Not the tears of hysteria and wild emotion, but the quiet tears of defeat.

I knew I needed to hear my own voice. I turned on my iphone (god, I love this thing!), went to the voice recorder and clicked “record.”

I sat there, pausing, breathing.  I know that explaining, complaining, and analyzing don’t do jack to heal us.  They aren’t the healing balm to suffering.

And I wanted HEALING BALM. Not some bandaid B.S.  I am over the “treating the symptoms” kind of approach.  I go for true healing.

So I decided to “go back to the basics” of my mindfulness practice:

I just started naming whatever was in my present moment awareness.

Any thought, emotion, memory, sensation…whatever came into my awareness, I named it.
“Anger.”
“Tightness.”
“Heat.”
“Now this layer of defeat.”
“Now breathing.  Now I am exhaling.”
“Crying….; wet…hot…”
“Now tightness in my throat.”
“Thinking.”
“Now thinking of memories from childhood.”
“Now this layer.  Thought.  Trying, trying sooooo hard.  And being misunderstood.  Feeling like crap.”
“Now breathing.”
“Now tightness.”
“Now ‘old belief’ – ‘I try and no one notices.”
“Aloneness.”
“Quiet.”
“Now regret.”
“Compassion.”
“Softening.”

It went on like this for 20 minutes.  Just naming whatever came into my present moment awareness.  No judgment.  No “going into the story.”  No analyzing the sensation, thought, memory, or emotion.  Only right here.  In the now.  Space.  And Breath.

Gradually, I noticed this:

life returning
a sense of resiliency
an okayness within me
no desire to change what was
letting go of blame, hurt
opening
expansiveness
a sense of connection

Gradually, there was less gripping.  My heart felt restored.  My body — calm.  My emotions — soft, even.

I thought of Lao Tzu’s words: “Can you wait until the mud settles and the waters become clear?”

The water was becoming clear.  Settled and clear.

NAME.
ALLOW.
PRESENCE.

That’s all I did.  I took a “N.A.P.”

This is what heals. This naming “what is.” This spacious allowing. This kind presence. Too often we get caught up in the weeds of our emotions and thoughts, when, really, all we have to do to become untangled from them is to look up and breathe in the expansiveness of the sky.  We get caught up in the waves of our thoughts and emotions instead of allowing them to just rise and and fall on their own…instead of remembering WE ARE THE OCEAN.

REMEMBER WE ARE THE OCEAN, as Tara Brach says.

Bitterness.  Confusion.  Gone.

In their place:  a gentle, compassionate, spaciousness for holding the deeper hurt within me – holding and regarding what longed to be seen within me.

But had I not just “allowed” and softened and breathed and named whatever it was that came into my awareness and held it all with gentle, gentle presence…but instead got caught up in the “weeds” of judgment, blaming, separating, I’d still be feeling like crap.  Maybe I would’ve called a friend and they would’ve been like, “Oh that bites, Lisa.  Wow.  They don’t know what a good thing they got!  You are an incredible………….” And I would’ve felt “better.”  For a moment.

But what was needing my attention most WEREN’T the particulars (the waves, the weeds) of what happened.  It wasn’t OTHER people’s reactions or behaviors that needed my attention.  IT WAS ME. The parts of me in need of some healing balm.

So I found myself THANKING these experiences of today – and all the people.  They woke me up to tend to ME.  I found myself BOWING to life and the SIMPLICITY and the ease to which we can suffer less.  Just a bit of spaciousness, naming, allowing, and gentleness.

Doing very little.  And yet healing a lot.

I didn’t change my experiences (or the people around me!). I changed how I related to them. And THAT cultivates peace. THAT is what, as the Tibetans say, brings on the lion’s roar: the capacity of heart to be with whatever arises.

I did call a friend. Well, she happened to call me. And I sat there telling her NOT about the particulars of the day but rather this process and the clearing and the CALM within me now. She gets it. We said very little. Still tender, I went home, lighter, softer, whole.

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #12: The Sacred Pause

taking a sacred pause in Spring.

“Rest in the pause between breaths.
Pause in the rest between thoughts.
Bask in the space between words.
Stop in the stillness of a calm lake
and listen.”
- Julie Rappaport

In her book, Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach talks about the Sacred Pause. Pausing for a moment in our day, perhaps several times in a day, to “arrive” right here. In your day. In your body. In your life.

As a mom to two little ones, I know how busy life can be. I get up at the crack of dawn (ok, even before dawn!) and I feel like I am going all day until I, often, fall asleep in my son’s bed after singing him to sleep.

It is challenging to get away for a girls’ night, a weekend retreat…let alone a week-long retreat. I find that I need “everyday” retreats. Mini retreats throughout the day so I can arrive at my heart again, center myself, and feel MY pulse as well as the pulse of Life. I need these mini retreats in order to be able to respond to my children (and husband and co-workers) instead of react.

Every. Single. Client. or workshop I facilitate, I offer the wisdom of finding “everyday ways” to take mini retreats. To center ourselves. To re-arrive in this moment. One such way or tool is the Sacred Pause.

The Sacred Pause is a gift. It gives us a chance to come back to our hearts. To relax. To recharge. To begin again our daily tasks of caring for others.

Here’s how a Sacred Pause might look:

Take a moment to pause.
Maybe you’d like to sit down.
Feel the feet on the floor.
Let the legs relax.
Soften the belly.
Feel the heart slightly lifting up to the sky.
Feel the crown of the head lifting up to the sky.
Soften your face – eyes, jaw, lips.
Feel the shoulders relax.
Become still.
Sense your attention deepening and feel your body.
Take a few full breaths – slowly exhaling.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Sense yourself softening – your eyes, shoulders, judgment
Sense yourself softly smiling.
Feel the heart – from the back of the heart – lifting.
Feel the sensations of your body – maybe tingling in your shoulders, or warmth in your hands.
Feel the body from the inside out.
Allow yourself to rest – just breathing in and out, feel the rise and fall of your breath.
Stay here, still and breathing, for as long as you need.
When you are ready, open your eyes gently and slowly.
Notice how you feel.

There you go. That’s what I try to remember to do and what I offer to others. In a few minutes – at the park, at work, before walking in to the house, when I’m brushing my teeth. A mindful practice that can often bring me back to my heart and help me to arrive here again and remind me of my connection to my own Self and the pulse of Life.

The ache of being so awake

I am still feeling the effects of a silent meditation retreat weekend with Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, Pat Coffey and Larry Yang (through the Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC). Even with a flooded bathroom sink, floor, and now basement, I’m chilled. We’ll see how long that lasts!

I have needed the silence. I hadn’t been on a silent retreat in five years since having my babies. I went into the weekend with no expectations. I knew that even just being quiet in a community of other like-hearted folks would be a welcomed gift for my nervous system. And that’s how I approached this weekend – as total gift.

When the retreat was over, I could’ve stayed the whole week. I had no desire to talk. But three days was about as long as I could be away from the kiddos right now. There will be plenty of opportunities some day for longer retreats. So I took a lovely British couple to the airport and then headed home.

Everything was “sensitive” – my senses, my heart. I felt…open. The bright orange road construction signs on Route 695 shocked me. All the cars seemed to be going at super sonic speed and it felt like keeping up would do violence to my soul. I noticed things. The little crack on the upper left hand corner of our car’s windshield. How each note of the soft music playing washed over me and in me. Water running down my throat. How Brian’s voice on the phone delighted my heart. The pain in my neck, forehead, and shoulders from sitting in meditation about 6 hours a day.

I knew I’d be getting home 15 minutes before A.’s soccer game. I knew I’d be going right back in to “life” – our life. And I welcomed it. But my heart felt…raw. Open. I knew that going to the soccer field and seeing a crowd of people again that my heart would almost burst – I’d notice people’s pain and joy. I’d notice their humanity – frailty, fear, courage, kindness. And I’d notice my own internal reaction to it all. And I “feared” the ache that might come with seeing so clearly. And I knew I’d have no words to explain it. Brian offered for me to stay home. But I hadn’t seen the kiddos, I wanted to just be with Brian, and I also wanted to see a dear friend there. I knew she’d accept me however I was.

I’ll be sharing in future posts about the meditation experience, but I wanted to start with this: there are moments in our lives when we are aware that we are seeing the raw truth of reality; when we sense the utter fragility and yet simultaneously the tenacity of life; when we are so filled with love or awe or sorrow over something quite simple; when we feel so deeply connected and moved by another human being – even just while sitting on the bus next to a stranger; when we know – deep in our bones – that we are seeing so clearly in this moment…. the ache of being so awake could burst open our hearts. And that can feel scary. Embarrassing. Raw. Silly. It could appear weak.

But I am learning that there is no other way to live and be true to one’s self, to be on our deathbed without regret, to be fully alive, than to let the heart awaken and feel it completely. Being moved with compassion – for ourselves and others.

So ache on, little heart of mine. Burst open, little heart of mine. Be moved. Be tender. Let the tears fall. Say the words rising up. Extend your hand. And appear foolish. But happy – in all the moments of opening and connecting with others…and in the last moment of the last breath in this life. A life lived awake and offered to others. So this is my deep hope for myself…and everyone. Please keep me seeing deeply, dear friends, even when it aches. And I will do the same for you.

Mindful Moment: Thich Nhat Hanh (again!)

Oh how I love Thich Nhat Hanh! He has these these simple, lovely phrases for lightening and softening the heart that we can incorporate into any day we’re having…any moment, actually! Here’s one that I’m breathing today,

“Breathing in, I soften; breathing out, I smile.”

Having a “metta moment”

 

Welcome to the April Carnival of Natural Parenting: Compassionate Advocacy

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared how they advocate for healthy, gentle parenting choices compassionately.

 

By the end of today, you probably have hugged someone you love, looked lovingly at your kiddo, supported a friend who was on the verge of losing it, smiled at a neighbor, and maybe even lent a hand to a complete stranger. But have you looked kindly at yourself, said something uplifting and supportive to yourself, or given yourself a break?

There was a moment last week when I was about to lose it. Just the normal stuff staying home with two little ones. But I was done. Have you been there?!

I called my friend Rachel to tell her that I seriously doubted we’d be over for our playdate. Rachel had this gentle, understanding way of taking in what I said. She herself had just been there this morning. She didn’t try to fix what I was saying or top it with her story, and she didn’t get all caught up in my emotions. She “woke me up” (a mini enlightenment!) and in that moment I realized that I had gone down that path we go down when we are tired, hurt, or frustrated – we feel as though we are the only ones feeling what we are feeling. We harden – our bodies, points of view, and our hearts.

I paused. I paused and took a “metta moment.” Metta means kindness. I softened into my breath and into my heart. And that was enough. It was enough to create some spaciousness, to lighten up, to go easy on myself, and to begin again. I didn’t attack my day with more vigor and determination. I softened.

A classic version of the Buddhist Metta Meditation goes like this:
“May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I live with ease.”

Sometimes, that comes later – after a simple moment of taking a few breaths and softening. And as we send ourselves such kindness, we can send those well-wishes to others.

But how about you? Do you easily soften, give yourself a break, and lighten up? Don’t give yourself a hard time if you haven’t!!! Just realize this…and soften.

More and more these days I’m seeing that the answers to being happy aren’t complicated. Soften our harsh judgments, high standards, impossible expectations, and cruel self-talk. Soften our furrowed brows, tight jaws, and clenched fists. Soften, soften, soften.

Much of my work as a body-centered and mindfulness psychotherapist involves showing clients how to bring in a little dose of self-compassion to their everyday lives – this moment, this breath, this thought, this feeling. Much of my daily “work” as a mom to two little ones involves getting some breathing space and offering myself that dose of self-compassion.

Dr. Kristin Neff, Associate Professor in Human Development and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the country’s leading researchers on self-compassion, defines self-compassion as “bearing witness to one’s own pain and responding with kindness and understanding.” Instead of going down “that path” of beating ourselves up and getting lost in our emotions, we just pause, lighten up, honor our humanness, and bring in a bit of gentleness. And we soften.

You all know that “softening” is one of my words for this year. In our culture, being soft is seen as a negative thing. Gentleness is often viewed as wimpy. But I am coming to understand that there is great power and strength in gentleness and softness. I am coming to understand the truth of Lao-tsu’s words:

“Softness triumphs over hardness…what is more malleable is always superior over that which is immovable.”

I recently wrote a post about how my husband’s gentle nature has impacted me – my heart, nerves, and spirit. Gentleness creates a sense of expansiveness. It lets in light. It softens taunt nerves and quells anxiety.

Recall the last time someone treated you with gentleness – it probably felt like sweet water for a parched soul. Recall the last time someone responded to you with soft and kind words – it probably felt refreshing and warm.

Gentleness generates warmth – within you and between you and another person. Gentleness and softness infuse any moment with lightness and ground us. They renew a sense of “I am ok, this is ok, all is ok.” Strength, hope, and possibility grow out of that. Now that is power!

I am beginning to see the wisdom of the Dalai Lama’s words: “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Every day Brian and I make sure we have good food for ourselves and our kiddos, we take baths, drink plenty of water, and brush our teeth. Every day we do these “basic necessities.” But every day we all need doses of love and compassion – for ourselves and our dear ones. Not as some luxuries or indulgences but as necessities to survive and thrive.

As we give ourselves a break and treat ourselves with kindness, that flows into all we do and all those we encounter. I do believe that whatever we want for this world, we first have to cultivate it within ourselves. I dream of a compassionate world for my children…and my children’s children. One simple act of self-compassion plants the seed to such a world.

And the other day when I lightened up and watered that one little seed of self-compassion?

We all had a better afternoon! I was able to lighten up with my four year old, give up on my one year old napping, and laugh about it (sort of) with Brian when he got home. I also was able to more clearly identify what I needed – a break at my writing desk while Brian took the kiddos outside. I went in to seeing clients that evening with a lighter heart and more acceptance for what it is like to be human and get through a day.

 

 

A Lenten Metta Meditation

My friend and colleague, Julie Kaus, recently shared this version of Metta meditation found in Pocketful of Miracles by Joan Borysenko:

“May I be at peace, May my heart remain open,
May I awaken to the light of my own true nature,
May I be healed and may I be a source of healing for others.”

What a lovely way to start one’s day. I think I’m going to use this during my Lenten prayer time. Lovely images. I hope this prayer speaks to you as well.

For all us women in need of some spring renewal, there is still a chance to take part in the Women’s Spring Retreat next weekend with Julie (Friday Mar 18 – Sun 20 2011). Enjoy gentle yoga, ritual, meditation for women, nutritious food, quiet time, nature hikes, nurturing & reflective activities. Julie is a phenomenal yoga teacher and psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience in the healing arts. Visit her site for more info.

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.”