We're just going to continue to work with emotions,
Using RAIN,
Different tools of investigation,
Recognizing what's happening,
Accepting it,
Allowing it,
Investigating it,
What is it,
What does it feel like.
Out of the thinking,
It's just another avoidance strategy.
We like to think and analyze and figure out.
So the invitation is actually to pull away from that and back into the body.
What am I feeling in my body?
Where am I feeling it?
What is it made of?
All these things,
Investigate and not identify with it.
It's just something that's arising that will pass and will change.
So really being asked to turn towards and yeah.
So finding a way to sit that feels good to you.
Your only duty is to try and not run from here.
From this.
Even if the hole of loss burns deep into your soft belly.
Even if upon awakening you feel the dread of walking through the day stripped bare and it feels like the wind will pierce those places that lay open and exposed.
At times in this life you don't have a choice but to pick up where you left off.
To make a cup of tea,
To sit quietly in the garden of your own creation and take in the day.
To turn towards exactly where you are.
You could always pretend,
Try putting on a face other than your own or try avoiding the whole thing.
But that's a game that's never worked and only burns a deeper hole inside the pocket of longing and makes the shell you have chosen to live in even more empty.
But when you surrender to embrace your loneliness and the starved parts of your being and you touch the void that you have spent a lifetime running from with delicate hands of love.
The way the evening fog envelops the solitary tree without flinching.
Pressing into and loving every snarled crevice,
Every twisted branch,
Even the forgotten needles fall into the ground.
But this is the first step that begins this slow journey of completeness.
It keeps inviting you deeper and deeper and deeper to the roots of yourself.
Claiming a place that has always been waiting.
It's always right here.
Settling in,
Just really noticing,
Appreciating,
Feeling the continuity of practice.
The stillness,
The groundedness.
And checking in with the body.
Any places of holding or tension,
Seeing if you can soften,
Relax.
Face the shoulders,
Your belly.
Left front,
Strong back.
Seeing if you can get in touch with the emotional body.
May or may not be a little bit more subtle,
Nuanced.
Just noticing what's present for you.
If it's pleasant,
Neutral,
Appreciating the lack of pain,
Discomfort.
But not clinging to it,
Just pleasant,
Neutral,
Allowing it to exist,
Allowing it to arise when it does.
What you're feeling in this moment is unpleasant.
Emotional body is unpleasant.
Seeing if you can,
You've already recognized it,
You have the capacity to know what's happening.
Seeing if you can allow it to exist.
With this flavor of allowance,
There's always also a real sense of compassion.
Thinking about what's difficult.
Can I care about this pain?
Instead of hating it or being annoyed by it or needing it to change.
Can I tend to it as if a child were to come to me in some sort of pain?
Can I tend to it the way that I would tend to a child?
In distress,
Anxious,
Afraid,
Lonely,
Scared.
When you hold yourself the way you might pick up a child and hold him close to your heart.
Be like it's going to be okay.
I've got your back.
I love you.
Keep going.
Investigate it.
What is this pain?
What is this sadness?
What is this loneliness?
Where do I feel it in my body?
What does it feel like?
What is it made of?
Out of the thinking mind,
More direct experience of really being curious about sadness,
Any of those harder emotions.
From this,
This last letter and this acronym is revealed.
I'm like,
Oh yeah,
This is not me.
This is not who I am.
This is a sensation in the body.
It feels like this.
And all it's really doing is calling for my love and attention.
I get to watch it shift and change and pass,
Allowing it to pass on its own time.
Sometimes this language of letting go,
It can feel like let it go away.
Letting go,
Why isn't it changing?
Better way of looking at it is let it be.
And I just let this be.
Anything else?
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Keep breathing.
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