Peace is Within

    Our, 'How are you?' is often answered with, 'Not bad' or 'No use complaining.' Most of us generally feel EITHER "Normal! - Just our usual 'ordinary unhappiness,'" OR Bad! - Stressed, contracted & pessimistic. This is NOT caused by terrible external circumstances, BUT by our negative internal conversations (self-talk) continuously droning on in your heads. 

    Ongoing self-talk is a product of the brain's left hemisphere, activated by greed (neediness, sense of lack, not enough, not good enough - low self-esteem is very common even among mental-health professionals.) AND aversion (anxiety, fear, anger, hostility, disgust, etc). So self-talk is a constant, anxious motivator to escape the present moment. We hope that by escaping and / or acquiring something, we might be happier, if only briefly. This drive to escape the present to possess happiness later is so strong & pervasive that a 2014 study conducted by psychologists at the University of Virginia found that when left alone in a room with nothing to do for 15 minutes, 67% of men & 25% of women chose to administer mild electric shocks to themselves rather than sit quietly with their own thoughts. https://www.science.org/content/article/people-would-rather-be-electrically-shocked-left-alone-their-thoughts 

    YET OCCASIONALLY, BRIEFLY, we find ourselves wonderfully alive, energized & engaged, even awed & grateful by what the present moment holds! It can actually be even something we've come across & ignored many times before, BUT now remarkably, we perceive it as a dramatically spectacular, never-to-be-forgotten experience. Instead of our usual anxious chase for relief, we actually feel peaceful, pleasant, awed, timeless, spacious, wonderfully optimistic & ever so grateful. We might even remark how it seems to make no sense to feel this wonderful when nothing in our outer world has changed at all! "Everything changed, yet nothing changed," is a common statement.

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen   

    "And as far as we know, this intuition that we’re part of something greater than ourselves is very ancient. All these cave paintings from 20, 30, 40 thousand years ago, the practice of burying the dead, dealing with the dead in a ritual way, and so on, all these things suggest that this has been part of human consciousness for a very, very long time. No doubt the forms have changed, and the development of the great religions has put a more unifying aspect on these insights, but it seems to me that it’s been foundational to human life throughout almost all human history, with the brief anomaly of Western Europe and parts of North America, in the last 150 years.” 
    "Dr Iain McGilchrist & Dr Rupert Sheldrake - Intersection of Consciousness and Matter."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAvwy2LTLMM  

    This makes no sense at all to our left hemisphere, the narrow role of which is to quickly grab what we need to survive & to solve simple practical problems - basically, the materialist reductionist perspective. 
    However, when the right hemisphere is given the opportunity (ie some peace, quiet & relaxation) to balance the left hemisphere, we're allowed to appreciate the right hemisphere's far broader perspective which includes intimate connection with all that gives our life meaning & value: love, gratitude, music, humor, the arts, ritual, dreams, awe, mystery, the divine, mysticism, spirituality, mythology, religion, metaphor, paradox, symbolism, etc.
    "Why the West is Losing Meaning - Iain McGilchrist interview." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C85Vyq-yQtk

 

    “Although we all have a fundamentally pure nature, it is not easy to get in touch with it. The gross way our mind ordinarily functions drowns out this deeper more subtle vibration to such an extent that we generally remain unaware of its existence. If we truly want to connect with this subtle essence, we need to quiet all distractions and loosen the hold our ordinary appearances & conceptions have on us. In other words we need to create space, space in which our essentially pure nature can function uninterruptedly. Then. . . we will be bringing to the surface the inner, divine qualities that have always existed within the depths of our being.” Lama Thubten Yeshe

    So we might say & actually believe that our self-concepts & worldviews are mature & even spiritual. BUT if most of our self-talk is negative ("broken"), this will make us feel miserable, which in turn indicates that our actual self-concept & worldview are darker than we imagined. 
    A negative / dark / pessimistic self-concept & worldview, according to wisdom traditions, the experience of serious meditators, the opinions of all the current experts I respect, and my own lived experience, is sadly distorted! 

    Mindfulness practice is very much about acceptance of what is real, seeing clearly & engaging fully with whatever the present moment holds. 
    Research findings are encouraging: 
        • we feel authentic & truly happy only when we're fully present; 
        • it’s the quality of our presence, not external environment, that brings happiness. 
    Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Science 2010; 330(6006): 932.

 
     “Your consciousness, your heart matters enormously, and in a way, it is the only thing you’re asked to look after. 
    You’re not asked to solve all the problems of the world. That of course would be overfacing. Nobody could ask you to do that. But there is something that you can easily neglect that you are asked to do, which is to take responsibility for yourself. 
    We don’t know what this gift of life is, but my view is that it is something that we can either waste or we can use for good. And what it is there for is for us to respond to the ground of being - another way of talking about the God that created all of this. That is why we exist. Life is improbably hard to imagine occurring as a random event for all sorts of reasons, some of which I’ve expressed in my writings, particularly in “The Matter with Things.’ (also in: Alan Lightman. “The Ordinary Miracle of Existing. Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience.” The Atlantic, June 2, 2026.)
    But that aside, life involves quite extraordinary expense of energy, in a way which doesn’t deny the second law of thermodynamics but acts, for a while, very steeply against its tendency. In other words, the tendency of the universe overall is we are told, although it may only apply to the bit of the universe that we know of after all, is for energy to deplete – increase in entropy. But life involves kicking that trend extraordinarily powerfully, and the carrying on of the development of more and more sophisticated life is extraordinary. How do you account for this? Because already with very simple early organisms – actinobacteria at the base of the ocean, some single examples are a million years old. If the purpose of this game of life is to increase your life expectancy, then we’ve gone in the wrong direction. Something has put an incredible amount of energy into developing sophisticated beings that are relatively short-lived. What does this mean? 
    Well, to me it means that the things that we are capable of responding to, which are the great values that I think form the purpose of the cosmos, the expression of goodness, beauty and truth, and I would say also the sacred. The expression of these values requires a kind of reciprocation. 
    So I see God - the ground of being - and his creation as being in an ongoing reciprocal process whereby that ground of being is discovering about itself what its potential can unfold, as what is infolded is unfolded all the time into myriad complex and beautiful entities. And we are the creatures that can respond, reverberate, resonate, be responsible in a relationship, the primary relationship of all relationships that we have with God who is described as love. And love is nothing if not relationship. 
    And that’s not unusual. I mean around the world there are ideas of a divine essence which has different names – Dao, Logos, Yahweh, - it doesn’t really matter, but these ideas are foundational in all cultures that there is something there that has produced this lifegiving creative universe, and we play an important part in what that is. And that is not self-aggrandisement. In fact there is something self-aggrandizing and rather ungrateful in the notion that we should diminish ourselves, and indeed the tendencies in our culture towards lacking self-respect for the human species. 
    I think it’s very good to appreciate the things that we have done wrong, and the havoc we have wrought in the world in the last few hundred years. But I think it’s very, very wrong to vilify & debase humanity. The fact that humanity can do bad things is the flip side of the fact that humanity is capable of the most extraordinary, beautiful and good, and to me holy acts of creation that reciprocate whatever it is that gave us life. 
    And it’s this dance, this back and forwards, this magnifying, this ever creative, ever growing process in which the good and the beautiful and the true can find expression that is the gamble that that creative source of being took on in creating life and creating complex life such as human life.”
    "Why the West is losing meaning - Iain McGilchrist interview." 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C85Vyq-yQtk

 

    “The real question is: Are you willing, whether your experience is tranquil, turbulent, ecstatic, tragic, opulent, or austere, to give yourself wholeheartedly to what is truly alive in you?”
    Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017.

"Don't judge each day
by the harvest you reap
but by the seeds
that you plant."

Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Aimee Carty - "Painter" 

Balance

     What is reasonable, appropriate, balanced, is context dependent. When a wildfire is closing in on their home, people should rush to gather family, pets, their most precious belongings, and escape as quickly as possible. However, a family going on vacation behaving as if a wildfire were closing in would clearly be unreasonable, inappropriate, unbalanced.

    For a variety of reasons, many have a distortedly pessimistic perception of their current & future context.
    Past traumas & ongoing traumas: racism, bullying, poverty, etc, lead to perceiving mainly danger, to great difficulty trusting anyone / anything, and being trapped in survival mode.
    News media almost exclusively focus on tragedy: murders, mass shootings, wars, fires, landslides, losses & misery of every kind. "Human interest stories" have devolved to this. The tremendous amount of kindness, good will, forgiveness, generosity & collaboration just to keep our busy transportation systems, factories, health-care systems & businesses running smoothly never seem to be newsworthy.
    Advertising firms earn billions convincing us that our only chance for happiness is through buying advertised products & services.
    Many unwittingly turn legitimate science into a fundamentalist religion. Secular materialist dogma preaches that science can & very soon will know EVERYTHING, & be able to control EVERYTHING. They furthermore assume that everything, including human beings, are nothing more than machines, arisen by chance, meaningless, and will inevitably disintegrate, end of story.

     A leading PTSD expert wrote: “If you feel safe & loved, your brain (is) specialized in exploration, play, & cooperation; if you are frightened & unwanted, it (is) specialized in managing feelings of fear & abandonment." Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.  

    “William Blake said, ‘As a man is, so he sees.’ ... the way a person sees or understands him or herself deeply conditions the ways he or she sees & understands objects, others & the world.” Rupert Spira

     These potent influences (above) in which we are SATURATED have produced our profoundly unhealthy, unsustainable, toxic, left-hemisphere-dominant culture. Historically, whenever cultures became left-hemisphere-dominant, they quickly collapsed.
    Whenever the right hemisphere is dominant, cultures thrive and the left hemisphere serves an important but limited, supportive role. Iain McGilchrist spent 30 years researching, writing & speaking about hemispheric differences. From one of his many SUPERB interviews: Iain McGilchrist: "Wisdom, Nature and the Brain" - The Great Simplification #85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dogVQDydRGQ 

    "... the most important parts of religious experience & practice, the consensus is, seem to be underwritten by the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is sort of necessary for systematizing it and turning it into a durable phenomenon such as Christianity or whatever it may be, Islam. But in doing so, it often over legalizes, makes over-certain, over-fixed what should be less certain, more fluid, more awe-inspiring, in fact.

    ‘Most human institutions, by the purely technical & professional manner in which they come to be administered, end by being obstacles to the very purposes which their founders had in view.’ William James

    I think we’ve lost the capacity for three very important things: a sense of awe or wonder; a sense of our own humility, or the humility we should have; and compassion. And I think these are the things that most religions that are real religions, or spiritual traditions that are true spiritual traditions, have in common, that they induce and rekindle in us a sense of wonder. They make us feel appropriately humble about what we can do & what we can know, and they increase our sense of oneness with and compassion towards the rest of the created world.
    Now I think that is what’s going wrong. I think we’ve completely failed to understand that religion is not about a matter of propositional belief, but dispositional belief. Belief is a matter of a disposition of your consciousness towards the world in a certain way. It’s not about propositions or six impossible things that you have to believe before breakfast. That’s not what religion’s about.
    And what I want to do in my work is take people from a standpoint where they will almost certainly be part of the culture that believes that only somebody rather simple or uneducated would think that there was a divine realm, to a position where they will see that only somebody who’s rather simple or uneducated would just want to rule that out. I’m not saying would become suddenly religious, but I think it’s extremely clear that people who either are fundamentalist religious or fundamentalist atheists are on the wrong track, and that they have more in common with one another than they have with true believing people. In any case, I just think that business of the ever-evolving, deeper relationship, a loving relationship with the world in all its manifestations, IS the secret of human wellbeing & happiness.
    And you say that there is now a different religion, that of economic growth and so on. … I’m sure you’re broadly right, and it reminds me of something that GK Chesterton said, that ‘When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in anything.’ ((DJT became a Republican "because Republicans will believe anything.")) And that ‘anything’ for them ((and DJT)) is their own power, to become more & more rich, powerful, wealthy. And that leaves out of the count just about everything that sustains human happiness. And in the seeking for it, they will never find happiness. As a psychiatrist, I can tell you that the most successful people, the richest people, the most powerful people are not the world’s happiest people.”
    Interviewer, Nate Hagens: “As a former high-net-worth stockbroker on Wall Street, I totally concur with that assessment.”
    Iain McGilchrist: "Wisdom, Nature and the Brain" - The Great Simplification #85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dogVQDydRGQ

    Despite the US's second relapse into cave-man rule, wisdom & decency CAN & WILL prevail!

     "All shall be well,
      and all shall be well,
      and all manner of things shall be well." Julian of Norwich (1342 – 1416) English Christian mystic

      “So long as one is merely on the surface of things, they are always imperfect, unsatisfactory, incomplete. Penetrate into the substance and everything is perfect, complete, whole.” Philip Kapleau. “The Zen of Living and Dying. A Practical and Spiritual Guide.” Shambhala, 1998. 

       "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen 

      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.” Rabia Basri 

     "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara

     "... everything yearns to be met. Everything yearns to resolve itself in love – that love being the open space of acceptance, of allowing, of staying resolutely present, and unconditionally open to every nuance of your inner experience." Amoda Maa. "Surfing the Heart of Darkness: Suffering as a Doorway to Liberation." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXlUsBYbv0w

      During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda 

 

 All that's obviously alive & seemingly inanimate, awaits our recognition & love, for we are ONE

Rise and Shine!

     The vast majority of us would like to be far happier. Most of us gradually realize that how we pursue greater happiness - chasing after more & better possessions, experiences, friends, lovers, physical health, longevity, etc - is frustratingly useless.
    Our default mind (ego, small separate self, personality) has evolved to quickly find advantage (Albert Szent-Györgyi) - to optimize our chances for survival, not to penetrate deeply meaningful Truth. What takes most of us a lifetime to realize, is that the bigger & louder our ego, the shallower, more meaningless our life becomes. Even under fairly low-levels of stress, the noise of our ego hides from us our deepest, most peaceful, contented, joy-filled human level of consciousness.

    “The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not 'the thinker.' The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence.” Eckhart Tolle

    “Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.” Eckhart Tolle

    We are called “to serve not our limitations but what’s whole & unbreakable, our true Self. It’s easy to identify with all the places we’ve been hurt & abandoned, but can we identify with the timeless wholeness that weathers every condition? If we can’t, we may spend this life protecting ourselves and never risk really living.” Bonnie Myotai Treace

“The challenge awaiting us is to go much deeper as human beings,
to abandon superficial prejudices & preferences,
to expand understanding to a global scale,
integrating the totality of living, and
to become aware of the wholeness of which we are a manifestation."
Vimala Thakar

     We are extremely fortunate to have numerous wise, evolved teachers & their guidance instantly available on the web. Most recently I've deeply re-connected with Helen Hamilton's guidance. She gently helps us see how we're far more than the stories we keep telling ourselves (self-talk) about ourselves. When we learn to take our self-talk very lightly, we let go of the idea of being a small, isolated, insignificant accident of nature, struggling to survive in a hostile, meaningless universe (atheist dogma). When not lost in this dark cloud, we can directly experience our Oneness (Unitive Consciousness) which is radically more life-affirming.
     Most mystics & saints of all different traditions & times; serious meditators & contemplatives around the world; near-death experiencers (NDE); those who've journeyed with plant medicines (entheogens); astronauts who've experienced the "Overview Effect"; and many who've had spontaneous awakenings eg Eckhart Tolle; all seem to share some version of pantheism - the direct mystical experience & understanding that "reality, the universe, and nature are identical to divinity or a supreme entity. The physical universe is thus understood as an immanent deity, still expanding and creating, which has existed since the beginning of time."

 

     “We are one, but we will only feel that when we love everything.” Ram Dass

    "Treat everyone you meet as if they were God dressed in drag." Ram Dass

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen

    “The only real purpose of being here on this earth is to learn or to re-remember our original natural state of no limitations.” Lester Levenson 

    “The only service you can do for anyone (including yourself) is to remind them of their true nature.” Stephen Levine

     IF you devote quality time, deeply listen, & integrate Helen Hamilton's positive suggestions into your days, your quality of life will progressively improve.
    Here are 3 of her many excellent free YouTube videos. To read along, just click the CC button for text: 

 

‘The Silence and The Fear’ interview by Iain McNay :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTJDL7l15A&list=PLF004A8F551CE8FB9
(59min)

Helen and Walter chatting non-duality - amazing interview! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0aRSPDoj28
(78min)

 

“You are the Sought and not the seeker” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CATgxM71gwc
(71min)

 

    "... the truths discovered by the Buddha are already in your heart. There is a One Who Knows within you who already understands & is free. If you can turn towards this natural awareness and rest in it, then everything will become simple." Ajahn Chah https://jackkornfield.com/learning-the-middle-path/?mc_cid=84d6b00a6f&mc_eid=cd718e6a49 

 

    Helen Hamilton guides listeners to discover & rest in this natural awareness within all of us. We CAN experience it directly. Other descriptors: Silence, Stillness, Awareness, Equanimity, Love, Joy, Freedom, Presence, Ultimate Reality, Vastness, Emptiness.

 

"Earthrise" - photo by Apollo 8 astronaut, the late William Anders

 

Ending Suffering Alone

    “We need to be aware of what we are practicing in any moment. Because whatever we practice, we get better at, whether it’s the skillful OR the unskillful.” Christina Feldman

    Sadly most of us (unconsciously) routinely practice avoiding the present moment, opting instead for all manner of distractions, as well as outright dissociation. Something about the present moment gets us to shut down, run away & hide, often alone.
    BUT when we're suddenly hit with an existential bomb - the diagnosis of a serious disease like Parkinson's; or our world is rattled by serious physical injury eg our body crashing against a bus' windshield; or worse, being overwhelmed by a whole series of serious challenges in rapid succession - we MIGHT actually open up to ourselves, those close to us, & possibly mental-health specialists about what we're going through, and share our experience of shipwreck.
    Such shared curiosity & examination of life's most challenging & most meaningful moments is precious intimacy - with ourself, others and life itself, and feels refreshingly expansive, wholesome & healing! Very recently, I had the privilege of deeply listening to two old friends share their journey through major current challenges.

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen 

    “It is the perspective of the sufferer that determines whether a given experience perpetuates suffering or is a vehicle for awakening.” Mark Epstein MD

    “We suffer to the exact degree that we resist having our eyes & hearts opened.” Adyashanti

    Whether we're part of a joyous celebration, OR shoveling a large mound of sand from one spot to another, OR undergoing a searingly painful medical procedure, we're at our BEST when we're fully open to & fully engaged with present moment reality - not judging it in any way, neither trying to hold onto it, nor trying to escape it. This may sound weirdly counterintuitive & counter-cultural, however, the proof is in practicing & experiencing this for yourself.

    Siddhartha Gautama was born over 2,500 years ago, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents. But when he realized that despite his privilege of youth, health, wealth, power & position, he & everyone he loved - like everyone else in the world - are subject to constant change, aging, sickness & death. He was shocked but inspired, leaving all that he had behind (his wife, young child, parents, possessions & kingdom) to search for the cause of suffering and the way to end it. After years of severe asceticism, and meditation, he succeeded, attaining enlightenment, after which he was called the Buddha.

    "The Buddha stated the cause of suffering through his Four Noble Truths:
        • There are suffering & dissatisfaction in the world & in our lives.
        • The cause & origin of that suffering is Craving.
        • The cessation of Craving is the cessation of suffering.
        • The eight-fold path leads us to the end of that suffering.

    This is Buddhism in brief: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path leading to the end of suffering.
    Buddhism is not about rites, rituals, prayers & incense. It is not a religion, but a scientific investigation into overcoming sorrow at all levels of mind & body ... certainly beyond any religious belief system ... as well as beyond anything science currently offers.
    ... the Buddha made it clear that if you follow the directions, awakening can be achieved in a single lifetime, even in as little as a few days. This is as true today as it was at the time of the Buddha." David C. Johnson. “The Path to Nibbāna. How Mindfulness of Loving-Kindness Progresses through the Tranquil Aware Jhānas to Awakening.” 2017. 

    "The wisdom that the suffering doesn't belong to you will itself get you out of suffering, without you having to do anything." Shri Atmananda

    I stumbled on this insight on my first longish (10-day) silent meditation retreat. My suffering from "meditation pain" felt so massive, that I was certain it couldn't possibly be mine alone, and that I must somehow be helping to process all of humanity's burden of suffering. As soon as I gained that perspective, the suffering disappeared, replaced by blissful ease & joy.
    So suffering is impersonal - nobody's out to get us, we're not unlucky or cursed, etc. Yet we take many things, especially suffering, VERY personally. Learning to LET GO of the sticky mental habits that cause suffering is considered skillful practice ie a practice that reduces our own & others' unnecessary suffering.
    Along the same lines, the sense of being a 'self' that's alone & separate from everyone & everything else - a lone wolf, me alone against the world - is an inherently cold, contracted, lonely, fearful. Our natural state is inherently warm, expansive, connected, joyous.
    We can actually practice residing in our natural state. And when we retract into separate self, we can learn to recognize & release this, and return to our natural state.

    “Suffering is not enough.
     Life is both dreadful and wonderful.
     To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects.

     Smiling means that we are ourselves, that we have sovereignty over ourselves, that we are not drowned in forgetfulness.
     How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow?
     It is natural— you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”                Thich Nhat Hanh

    "Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside." Ramana Maharshi

the days pass slowly,
but when you look back,
you realize how quickly the years have flown by

Michael Caine

 

 

New Year's Challange

    Regarding the previous (Dec 20, 2022 "What Are We to Do?") blog, one serious meditator wrote that he found it "challenging" when he was aware of both small self and Self, and had to remind himself of equanimity, to help accept the need for both.
    Another serious meditator, wrote that she's aware of (negative, fear-motivated) self-talk, and how it's destructive to that ‘silent, still, peaceful Self,’ She can, at times, stay in touch with that still Self. And then fear rises up and is so loud it causes a rushing sound in her head.
    Both of these are very insightful - the fruit of growing levels of mindfulness.

    It's fascinating how fear activates, tries to bring us back into, & keep us in FEAR-based, narrowly self-focused, left-hemisphere-dominant, self-preservation doing mode ('self'), whenever we shift into our true, authentic, LOVE-based, 'Self': spacious, broadly-connected, right-hemisphere-dominant being mode. 

    "... the only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 inaugural address

    We habitually get anxious about the anxiety we experience, depressed about depression, AND afraid of fear! We tend to have an automatic fight, flight or freeze reaction to fear itself. This creates a LOT of unnecessary ('discretionary') suffering.
    But mindfulness teaches us to intentionally shift from "fight, flight, freeze" to "tend & befriend" ie to be curious, accept, work skillfully, and thus eventually become intimate with EVERYTHING we experience, which naturally includes "difficult emotions."
    This is a shift in identity from completely identifying with our mistaken identity of being ONLY a "hurt child" to our true identity of being a "wise elder" who is spacious enough to accept & nurture a hurt child "part" (or subpersonality - see: Richard C. Schwartz. "No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model." Sounds True, 2021.)

    "Essential well-being is not found by calming our minds or by changing our thoughts or attitudes, but actually by shifting out of our chattering minds and into a freedom that is already available." Loch Kelly

    “Here are the best two things I’ve learned about fear – and this is really going to scramble your brain:
    If you try to conquer & overcome fear, that effort will either run, or ultimately ruin your life.
    But if you embrace fear, that effort will turn fear into one of the greatest experiences you have here on planet earth."
    Kristen Ulmer, for 12 years the best female big mountain extreme skier in the world; the outdoor industry voted her the most extreme “fearless” woman athlete in North America; mogul specialist on the US Ski Team; US Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame inductee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGSuA80A7YQ

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen 

      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.” Rabia Basri 

    "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
    Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry

     “Sometimes we need a gentle shift to continue our journey in the right direction that supports our growth. Ending the un-winnable war with fear and making friends with it instead, is one of those shifts.”
    Kristen Ulmer. “The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead.” Harper Wave, 2018.

   "... relax, allow life to be as it is, & open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.”
    Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011.