Good morning or good afternoon or good evening.
Sunday,
March 21st,
2021.
The first day of spring,
I think maybe the second day.
The time where days and nights are equal in length.
I've been in Portugal for almost six months and have been alone here in Al Jazeera almost for two months in a cottage.
While the rest of Portugal is locked down with just markets open.
I've decided to make this a small talk at the beginning.
It might be longer than a small talk and finishing with a meditation.
So I invite you as always to settle into a still space where you can close your eyes and just be present with your body and your breath.
And I invite you today to even go deeper,
Deep into your feelings.
I feel this might be the most important talk and meditation I've ever given.
And so I hope that you can find the time to be patient with me and to be here with me.
I feel that it is not only important for my own life.
But the intention is that it is important for every person that is listening and their life and well-being as well.
As are all my talks and intentions.
But this one I'm hoping will save my life and maybe yours.
I have a lump in my breast.
I've had it now for six,
Seven,
Eight years.
It started small.
So small that I doubted it was there.
It would come and it would go.
I was in a 20-year relationship and I didn't tell him.
I didn't tell anyone.
I didn't feel there was a point.
I wasn't going to do chemotherapy or radiation or surgery.
So there was no point.
My life was good,
So I thought and felt.
And so if this was the end,
Then this was the end.
But six years ago that relationship ended.
And a year after that I decided to start to look at this lump that was now growing.
I saw a naturopath.
I went for a thermography and MRI.
I was told I was very healthy in every way.
That I wasn't a host for this.
To change into cancer.
And yet it's continued to grow.
And even here in these last couple of months,
There's been a lot of fear.
I've been reading and I've been writing.
I wanted to take this time completely isolated from the world and dig into myself.
I thought I had been healing so much these last six years.
I healed a relationship with my mother that I hadn't spoken to in 13 years.
And now we talk almost every other day.
I felt I'd looked at so much.
I changed my diet.
I changed how I live.
I thought I was healing relationships.
But what I've learned is I haven't really looked at me and my beliefs.
What I've learned in these last six weeks about myself has been shocking.
I've learned that I am so deeply afraid of messing relationships up that I don't say my truth.
I become quiet.
And I've done that in my love relationships.
I become so afraid that if I say what I'm feeling,
If I express what I need,
That I'll mess things up.
They'll leave.
That they're not capable of staying.
That I'm not good enough.
That I'm bad.
And so I do everything to try to hide that.
I do incredible feats of physicality,
Of strength.
I've been called machine.
I've been called driven.
I've been called strong almost every day.
Determined,
Committed.
I have strong convictions that say to me and to the world,
Look,
I can do hard things.
I do what I say.
I don't become weak.
I don't give up when it gets hard.
Look at me.
I am good.
I am strong.
And yet underneath,
It's hiding the doubts.
That if you look deep enough,
I am not good.
That I mess things up.
And so can you just love me and not see all of this other stuff?
I haven't told my mother about the lump in my breast.
I didn't want her to be afraid or worried or put her fear on me.
I haven't said many of these things to anybody.
I just continue to push and pull in all my relationships.
And yet the lump continues.
What I've learned and have been reading is when you repress your truth,
When you don't heal these beliefs you hold about yourself,
Your body says no.
No,
I can't take this anymore.
No,
You can't keep doing this to me.
You need to heal this.
So I ask you to look at yourself.
It is no one's fault that we have these beliefs.
There is no one to blame.
It is our responsibility,
Our health to heal them.
To express our truth.
To feel what we feel.
To honor our hearts and our souls and our truth and to let it go.
So that our bodies can begin to do what they do so miraculously every day,
Which is heal.
But if we keep pounding on and pouring on our fears and our limiting beliefs about ourselves,
It keeps being unable to do what it does.
Fear is simply a challenge.
It calls you.
It calls you to become.
Whenever something is really good,
It is also scary because it brings you some insights.
It forces you towards certain changes.
If you go ahead,
It could be dangerous.
That's why it's scary.
Whenever there is some fear,
Always remember not to go back because that is not the way to solve it.
Go into it.
I was scared to come to this cottage alone and yet it is exactly what I needed in so many ways.
A group of monks from a monastery had to relocate a clay Buddha from their temple to a new location.
When the crane began to lift the giant idol,
The weight of it was so tremendous that it began to crack.
Then rain began to fall.
Concerned about damage to the sacred Buddha,
They decided to lower the statue back to the ground and cover it with a large tarp to protect it from the rain.
Later that evening,
The head monk went to check on the Buddha.
He shined his flashlight under the tarp and as the light reached the crack,
He noticed a little gleam shining back.
As he took a closer look,
He wondered if there might be something underneath the clay.
He went to fetch a chisel and a hammer from the monastery and began to chip away at the clay.
Soon,
The little gleam grew brighter and bigger.
Many hours of labor went by before the monk stood face to face with the extraordinary solid gold Buddha.
We are all like the clay Buddha,
Covered with a shell of hardness,
Created out of fear.
And yet,
Underneath,
Each of us is a golden Buddha.
We have a golden essence,
Which is our real self.
Somewhere along the way,
We began to cover up our golden essence,
Our natural self,
Our soul,
Our hearts.
Much like the monk with the hammer and the chisel,
Our task now is to discover our true essence once again.
I invite you to place a hand on your heart and the other just below your belly button.
What is your true essence?
What are you afraid to let the world see,
To speak,
To feel?
What have you buried down underneath the hardened clay that's causing you not to shine?
Breathe into that and feel it.
Begin to chip away the hardened clay.
Begin to let your golden essence shine through.
As you do,
As you heal this,
As you chip away the clay and shine your essence and you heal,
You light the world.
You light the way for others to do the same.
When you hide beneath the clay,
You diminish and you diminish your light in the world and the gifts that you are here to give.
In some small way today,
Please,
For yourself and for the world around you,
Pull out your chisel,
Pull out your hammer and start to chisel away the hard clay.
Sending you much love.
Namaste.
