Working with the stuck situations in our lives

How do I communicate to the heart so that a stuck situation can ventilate? How do I communicate so that things that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften up, and some kind of compassionate exchange begins to happen?  It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we’re feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.

Pema Chodron

….recognizing our stories

 

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

We live entirely by the impression of a narrative line upon disparate images,

the shifting phantasmagoria, which is our actual experience

Joan Didion

….and see clearly…

When we condemn or justify we cannot see clearly, nor can we when our minds are endlessly chattering; then we do not observe what is; we look only at the projections we have made of ourselves. Each of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.

It is one of the most difficult things in the world to look at anything simply. Because our minds are very complex we have lost the quality of simplicity.  I don’t mean simplicity in clothes or food……but the simplicity that can look directly at things without fear – that can look at ourselves as we actually are without any distortion – to say we lie when we lie, not cover it up or run away from it

Krisnamurti, Freedom from the Known.

Take time today to see….

 

Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time

– we haven’t time – and to see takes time,

like to have a friend takes time.

Georgia O’Keeffe,  American Painter.

Our troubles teach us compassion

Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Sunday Quote : Anxiety

It is not speaking that breaks our silence

but the anxiety to be heard

Thomas Merton

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