Managing Life From Our Mental Control Towers,

Most Of Us Grew Up With A Very Damaging Story That Something Is Wrong With Us. Gradually - Or As In My Case, Suddenly - We Become Resolved Not To Believe This Anymore. It Takes A Dedicated Practice To Follow Up On That Resolution, Because The Conditioning Is Very Strong To Keep Generating Self-demeaning Stories.

When I Watch That Attachment Happening, I See The Beliefs That I Have Around It. If Somebody's Not Paying Attention To Me In A Certain Way, In My Mind, It Means They Don't Love Me Or They Don't Respect Me. Bringing Awareness To The Beliefs That Are Underneath The Attachment And Bringing Awareness To The Way My Body And Heart Are Tightening, Helps Me Wake Up And Re-inhabit A Larger Space Of Being. Holding On And Pushing Away Might Be Going On But I'm Freer To Respond In A Healthy Way.

Compassion Can Be Described As Letting Ourselves Be Touched By The Vulnerability And Suffering That Is Within Ourselves And All Beings. The Full Flowering Of Compassion Also Includes Action: Not Only Do We Attune To The Presence Of Suffering, We Respond To It.

That Non-attachment Gives Us The Freedom To Be Exactly Who We Are.

I Speak A Lot About What I Call "the Trance Of Unworthiness" Which Is Really Epidemic In Our Culture, This Sense Of "i'm Not Enough," Or "something's Wrong With Me." Most Of Us Have Some Level Of It Because Our Culture Has All These Standards (handed Down Through Our Families) Of What It Means To Be Okay.