June 29, 2024

“Facing tough feelings like anger, anxiety, or despair, we lock on to the thoughts coupled to the feelings and lose our presence in the world. After such a struggle, you cannot work on the job, nor on the way home are you driving with anything more than a fraction of your being. The greatest portion of you is locked in a cycle of suffering, obsessing on thoughts tied into”

3:50 PM

“Often it has amazed me how much more stupid we adults are around such emotional issues than a young child is with a hot stove. The first time the child touches the stove and pulls away with singed fingers, it has learned not to touch a stove again. We adults do just the opposite with our difficult feelings: We go back to the hot stove time and again, and always we come away with burned flesh”

3:50 PM

“Such suffering is so unbearable that we’ll do anything we can to escape, avoid, and rid ourselves of our feelings. To blunt suffering’s unbearability, we may turn to chocolate binges, refrigerator raids, television, sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, or overspending.”

3:52 PM

“feelings be follows Lao-tzu’s counsel; it focuses on being present and welcoming all things. And it accomplishes the work of Understanding. In this practice we learn to accept even our darkest and most difficult places—not by running away from them, trying to think them away, or trying to do something about them, but by entering them deeply.”

3:55 PM