Tara Brach - Ask Me Anything with Tara and Jonathan (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Ask Me Anything with Tara and Jonathan (Part 1) - Tara responds to your questions, with Jonathan Foust, her husband and known meditation teacher, as the interviewer.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste, welcome, friends. This is a special edition here, because we have over the last few weeks been asking for your questions, a kind of ask me anything invitation, and oh my gosh, you have sent wonderful questions. So, Of course, we couldn't use them all, but we've got a portion of them, and I just really want to thank you for them first. And I'd like to introduce you to today's interviewer, Jonathan Faust. Welcome, welcome, Jonathan. With the being.

Yeah, Jonathan is, for those that don't know it, my husband, my beloved husband, also my beloved teaching colleague and playmate in all parts of life. Also, I worship him as my tech guru. He has saved all of us many rounds. And today he'll be in conversation with me and interviewing. And just a tiny bit of background on Jonathan is meditating since age 16, was it? Actually, it was 15. 15, sorry, a mere youth of 15. Teaching since you were, when did you start teaching at Kropaloo?

Oh my gosh, 25, 24, 25. Since you're 24, 25. So many, many decades out there putting out these teachings, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and beyond, currently teaches a weekly class online and workshops. You can find out more about him on his website, Jonathan Faust.com. So thank you, dear, for being willing to be part of this. It's my pleasure. And these questions are really good.

And I'm really aware that we could probably spend the whole time on each question. But we'll work our way through them. Okay. So here's the first question. How do you make time to meditate when life's demands are overwhelming? Like when you're caregiving for elderly family members or for young children? It's a good one because it's a lot of us. And, you know, we have this society-wide stressor of this underlying sense that I don't have

what I need to really cope or manage, that something around the corner is going to be too much. And underneath that is there's never enough time, that sense of never enough time. and it creates this inner sense of rushing and trying to get somewhere other than being right here now. And here's the thing. The care part of the word caregiving, it requires that we be able to come into presence, that we connect with our heart and really with our full being. So just to name, there's definitely seasons where it's difficult. to do a long meditation every day, but we can find time to do brief pauses to reconnect.

I remember when my son was born and first four or five months, like happens to all parents, I was up at all hours, and it was really challenging. and my practice was very, very spotty. And I remember one day, you know, a particularly stressful day and seeing myself so reactive and realizing that whatever money I had in the bank in terms of, you know, back up from my past practice, it was dwindling. I just didn't have much resilience. And I made this commitment that I was going to meditate every day no matter what.

But I had a back door. which was, it didn't matter how long. I could be doing it lying down or walking or drinking tea. As long as in some way I was intentionally using a window of time to be fully here as much as I could, to be present and kind. And so that has lasted. There were days that would be the end of the day and I would just sit down and for maybe a minute or two.

You know, I'd breathe and say, you know, thank you, bless you world. But that every day no matter what, it gives us this rhythm. And I just suggest short pauses if you can't do a long one. I know one woman in that sandwiched kind of experience of having two teens and a mother in a nursing home, her practice was she would listen to a top. talk, a podcast to talk while she was driving, and before she opened the door to get out and walk in the nursing home, she would just take a few full breaths and say, be here now, be here now. So we have to find these little spaces. Jonathan, you have so much experience with guiding people

and finding those spaces. Anything you want to share here. Well, I haven't cared for children before, but certainly it's something we're all up against at the same time is where do we find the time. How do we find the time? I just remember one time when I was teaching a class at the World Bank, and we talked about finding time for meditation. Someone asked me, they said, what do you do when you have no time? I said, well, do you have 10 minutes? And she goes, no, I don't have 10. Do you have five?

He goes, no, I don't have five. So just like you said, we talked about mindful moments, just finding those moments where you can just pause. And she came to the next class, very excited. And she said, I found my time. And I said, what's that? She was, well, I have an electric tea kettle. And from when I plug it in to when it whistles,

I watched breath, I scan my body, it's perfect. And I was so inspired by that. And it was later I realized it depends on how much water you put in the decal. I love that. But, you know, this is the sacred art of pausing. And I think about Martha Postal Wade's line, create a clearing in the dense forest of our life, you know, to create that clearing. So, yeah, thank you for that sharing. I love it.

Well, and this actually goes into the next question. And I'm not sure you've got any more to say on this. But just to sort of name it, because I think a lot of people relate to this, what's the best way to keep myself grounded, particularly as a new mother? My son is six months old, and I feel so flustered and overwhelmed all the time. So I think this has to not only with time, but how do you deal with being overwhelmed and flustered? Yeah, yeah. And this is for parents who have very young children, and also for those with not. so young children, it's very easy to get overwhelmed. And maybe I'll start with what makes it worse,

which is when we're stressed, we tend to judge ourselves for how we're doing things. And I know for myself, throughout my son's childhood, I had this kind of inner monitor that's always saying, well, how am I doing now? And a lot of the time, I felt like I was falling short in some way. I wasn't present enough or playful enough or creative enough or being enriching enough. Didn't have good boundaries. Sometimes I'd have, you know, not enough boundaries. Sometimes I'd be rigid. I just always judge myself.

And I have now since, I've been with so many parents who judge themselves as falling short, even saying things like, you know, I just, I don't like my child. I love my child, but I don't like my child and then feeling guilty. So I feel like the most important thing if we want to cut through the spiral of stress and overwhelm is to be very, very forgiving and accepting of our imperfections. I mean, I would recommend at the end of each day right before going to sleep doing what I call a self-forgiveness scan, which is just to go through the day and see the moments that we're kind of holding on to as, you know, bad self moments and forgive it. You know, I just, I put my hand on my heart and just go, forgiven, forgiven.

And I think if parents could just forgive themselves imperfections, the stress wouldn't build up so much. And then beyond that, it's kind of what we were mentioning, which is when we get caught in stress, if there's even a small pause. And I think it's really helpful to ask the question, you know, if your wisest self was advising, and when you're caught in the midst of stress, what is most important to remember? You know, what is it you really wish you could remember in those moments? And then practice when it's stressful, pausing and taking three breaths and reminding yourself of that. And I'll say one more thing, and that is when it's stressful, pausing and taking three breaths and reminding yourself of that.

is when there are those moments where you're viscerally filled with love for your child, you know, maybe it's when you're looking at them when they're asleep or for a new mom while nursing, when the child's smiling or laughing. In those moments, pause and know this as the most precious experience in the world. Our loving for our children is precious. And we don't always feel it in a kind of direct experiential way. So when it rushes through us in that way, pause, because love creates a space that's big enough for any of the stressors to move through. So this next question is about a deeper dive into, and I think it's asking for specifics in terms of the Tara Brock's self-care program. Here's the question. What do you do on a daily-based

as part of your self-care routine? Well, every day, and you can vouch for if I'm stretching things, but I'd say every day I exercise, and every day I take a cold shower. I'm really into cold showers. I start warm, but then I go cold. I try to get out into nature pretty much every day. That's part of self-care.

It's almost like if I had one religion, it would be immersing in nature. Plant-based eating, that's part of my self-care on many, many levels. Play, as many days as I can, I do something that's really fun for me, whether it's swimming or hiking or kayaking. And meditating is part of it. I'm curious for you, how you would, whether you concur on observing me and your ways of self-care. Well, first of all, you are so consistent.

You know, you are a naturally disciplined person, which I really admire. And I notice for myself, I tend to come up with really, in the moment, exciting goals for myself. And that is tempered over the years. You know, from I'm going to write a thousand words a day to really exploring what I think of as the minimum effective dose. you know, like, what's the least I can do to get the maximum effect? So a thousand words a day has gone to write something every day. And there's actually, it's something in there that I find really, really interesting. And I want to relax the pressure and the pushing.

It actually gives me room to be more spontaneous and more creative. So I think that's made a big difference for me, trying to find that distinction between like discipline and pushing and taking time to be more creative and kind of enjoy the flow of things. Well, one of the things I've noticed for both of us is that there's a basic rhythm in our daily life, you know, of creativity or taking time to meditate, to exercise, that kind of thing. But then when we're with others, when we're with family, when, you know, when the equation, changes, a lot of, the self-care can get kind of wobbly. I'll speak for myself. I can go into this mode of tending to other people and being the kind of self-sacrificing hero, you know, where in some

way my needs for sleep or my needs for eating healthy or whatever kind of get sidelined because I'm focused on others. And I'll let you speak for yourself. on how self-care goes for you when you're with others. One thing I try to do, certainly not successfully, is just to kind of really pause and evaluate, you know, is what I'm doing helpful or not? And what I find is if I start skimping on my meditation time, my misery level just goes up a little bit.

I think that's part of it. And I think it's one of the things in our relationship is we can offer each other. some feedback as to how we're showing up. That's a big part of it. Suffering is an amazing tool in terms of kind of backing us back into self-care. So aware of how habits tend to make us rigid or tend to make me rigid. You know, I kind of stick to a habit. And if I don't really stop and ask myself, what's the effect of this? Like, for example, I really liked having my coffee early in the morning for a long period of time.

and I just got in the habit of it, and I realized that there were some consequences to that. I would actually kind of crash deeper later. And so that little adjustment really made a big difference. So keeping it fresh, I think, is really important for me anyway. And if I compare us, your strength is keep it fresh and you stay creative and attune, but things can drop off that you wish would be more steady. And my strength is I'm steady as she goes, but I can get rigid in my habits of self-care. So I think we're a good couple.

We can remind each other. A little attention arc. There you go. That's great. So this next question is one that kind of dials in a little bit more into the actual practice of meditation. So here's the question. every time I pay attention to my breath, I automatically take control of my breathing. How can I pay attention to the breath and still have the breathing be natural and happen on its own?

Well, I love this one because I think if a lot, if I was doing, if we were doing a hand raise, when people are listening, a lot of people would raise their hands on, yeah, I can see I do that one. And it's important also because to be truly mindful, and that's of the breath or of anything, means we have to let go of controlling. It means allowing life to be just as it is. So this is true with all facets, it's reality. We tend to control if we can't understand something. We try to control it.

if we feel uncertain in any way we try to control. So how to develop a receptive, allowing presence is the whole deal here. And one of the things I found really helpful with the breath is to not start with the breath necessarily, but instead to start with sound. Because we listen to sound and get more into that state of our reception, a receptive listening presence that we can then bring to the breath. And maybe just all those listening right now,

you might experiment with this to let your attention open to sounds. And let them wash through the sounds of these words and the spaces between sounds and the background sounds. So there's kind of a, you're listening not just with your ears, but your whole awareness, distant sounds. Just notice there's nothing to do with listening. It's purely receptive. And see if it's possible to bring that same receptivity, that listening presence,

to listening to and feeling the body as a field of sensation. And within that, listening to and feeling. feeling the movement of the breath with curiosity and interest just to sense what's it really like. You might notice where you feel the breath most strongly, and maybe if you're paying attention at the nostrils, you can notice whether it's cooler with the inhale, warmer with the exhale, the difference in the length of the inhale and exhale. And if there's a pause in between, just noticing that it takes a receptive, listening presence to truly notice what the breath is like.

Yeah, so thank you for trying that out, those of you that did. Receptivity is not that easy because as I mentioned, we're very primed to try to control experience. So begin with sounds and then move to whatever part of your experience. you want to touch with more of that kind of openness. And it gets very interesting then. Yeah, so Jonathan, I don't know if you have any comments, what you've noticed with controlling the breath, or whether you want to move on.

It's just interesting. The breath is so much a part of who we are, and we don't pay any attention to it. This is a great story of in the bug world. One bug asked the centipede, which leg goes first, and the centipede was paralyzed, because it couldn't figure out which of the hundred legs actually went first. Only for many people, when you ask yourself, just to feel the breath,

it's surprising how much anxiety can come up when you, and you just see how there's this inner reflex that has you move from ease, just as you were saying, toward control. So I think there are a couple things that I do or that I recommend. And one is, if you notice that tendency to control coming in, is just to completely drop the breath, and then see if you can come back to it. And the other approach, just from my yoga background,

is actually literally control the breath. Now, to do coherent reading, for example, you know, breathing in four, exhaling four. So you have that sense of control and then let the technique fall away. And sometimes that will kind of help you to sort of arrive in a place of natural, no, natural effortless breathing.

So some of the techniques that I find that I find helpful. Oh, yeah, those are really, I'd forgotten about them. That is good. So there are a couple follow-up questions on breath. One is, here it is. It says breath is a common anchor. Can you talk about what other anchors are possible in this practice? Yeah, I like that question because we sometimes assume that it's

about, it's always about the breath. And, well, maybe first to say what an anchor is, which is in cultivating mindfulness, it helps to have a home base, like a sensory experience like the breath, because it helps us know when we've been lost in thought. You know, we have, oh yeah, I was paying attention to the breath and now I'm gone, and it gives us a place to return to. So that helps us stabilize and steady the attention, so we're living more moments in presence. But there are different anchors that we can come back to, and they have different benefits and different challenges. So the breath, it can be very precise, it can be very clear. It's a narrow focus, a narrow place to land and pay attention. And it can be sometimes hard to really find

and stay with and sometimes people get sleepy with the breath. Sounds, in contrast, that listening to sounds is actually a more, it allows for more spacious quality of attention, and it actually can be a wake-up. We can get more alert. So that's a very helpful thing, but also because it's so open and spacious, we can lose our focus. Another anchor is the experience of the whole body sensation. So you feel your sitting posture, your posture, and then feel the whole life of the body. Or, you could use in an anchor some part of the body. Let's say the hands or the feet. Hands and feet are typically good when there's some trauma because they don't trigger off reactivity as much. You can use as an anchor a set of

of words, a mantra, like the meta-meditation is using the phrases of self-care as a anchor. Here's the deal, though. It's an experiment for each of us to sense what anchor, what home base most serves presence and stabilizes our attention. And you have to practice with one enough to really sense its power. Choose one that's easy enough to access and is either neutral or pleasant. It might sound obvious, but it's not helpful to use an anchor that aggravate you.

For instance, if there's been trauma around breathing, breath's not a good choice. Or if you have tinnitus, you're not going to want to listen to sounds because you might get really reactive to ringing in the ears. So those are a few things to mention, and just to keep in mind, once the mind has quieted something, and you don't need to keep coming out of thoughts so much, when there's more of a sense of presence,

it's really valuable to let go of having any anchor. You can explore that. You can explore that perhaps at the end of each sit, just to sense that you have the breath, is a home base perhaps, and you're feeling it, and you're feeling the inflow and the outflow and things are getting quieter, and then just let yourself know, okay, letting go of the breath as a focus and just open to whatever life arises, the changing sounds, changing sensations, perhaps you'll feel the breath again, maybe you'll feel an emotion, kind of a wave in the heart, but you're not controlling or directing on any level the attention.

You're simply noticing what's happening moment to moment. And even behind that, the sense of awareness itself. So just an encouragement to experiment with what you'd like to have as your home base and also experiment with dropping at all when you get quiet. So here's the next question. When I meditate, I follow the breath. I get lost, I come back. It's boring.

It doesn't seem very revealing or very spiritual. Why is breath so important? Is there something more? I really like this question. And yes, there's something more than following the breath. There's this widespread misunderstanding that the aim of meditation is to be with the breath. Or I can widen that and say to be with the anchor, to come back to whatever that is. The purpose is presence. Really, the purpose of this practice is

homecoming to the loving and awake awareness that's our true nature. And an anchor is a tool. It's a skillful means towards that end. And it's because we're so often lost in thoughts that, as I mentioned earlier, having an anchor like the breath, it's training to come back. It's training to keep coming back and coming back. And it helps us to see, oh, okay, I was in this virtual reality of thoughts. And then back here now in this changing flow, in this mysterious presence. And when we learn to stay with the breath or an anchor and we start really noticing what it feels like, that creates this capacity for deep sea, for deep insight into the nature of things. So if we were witnessing our own minds, I often think of this, it might, it'd be almost like

we were living inside a TV set that's flickering from channel to channel to channel. and most of them aren't Discovery Channel, you know, and our attention's fragmented. This is kind of the daily trance, and we're regularly captured by whatever's disturbing or distracting or entertaining. I mean, I often think of it that if someone was whispering in my ear, all the stuff my mind keeps on, you know, narrating, you know, I wouldn't put up with it for a moment. And yet this is all increasing, especially in digital age, that attention is our greatest gift. It's our greatest gift, and it's continually being captured and manipulated by social media and digital marketing and news and these endless wormholes of the Internet.

So increasingly, we're losing that capacity to step out of virtual reality and really. be here with any depth of attending. And the reason I say all this is that more than ever, if we want to be able to inhabit our lives, you know, not race across the surface to the finish line, if we really want to inhabit our lives, we need a training that can help us to wake up from that virtual reality, that trance, and come back here. So, training with an anchor, like the breath or sounds or body sensations, we start getting the knack of noticing we've been in trance and finding a way back home into real life. And I think of it like, you know, often I hear from people after doing some practice for some months or maybe after coming back from a retreat.

and the deep realization is, I don't have to believe my thoughts. They're just thoughts. Sometimes people note that just thinking, just thoughts. I'm not my thoughts. It's the real freedom. It's the beginning of freedom, this awakening from the virtual trance. It's the beginning of connecting to our true creativity and intelligence and love. So the point isn't to always focus on the breath. The breath is a tool, and once we have some quietness and openness, it frees us to just be in touch with the whole changing flow and the awareness behind it. So this next question has to do with kind of applying mindfulness. What is the best mindfulness practice to deal with chronic, unavoidable work stress, particularly with colleagues and administration? So this is really applied meditation we're talking here.

How do we apply meditation, let's say, when there's stress or conflict in a work relationship. And I like to use rain, the rain meditation. And for those that aren't familiar, this is an acronym, recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. And it weaves together mindfulness and compassion. And it allows us to apply it to difficult. situations. Now, sometimes in the midst of the stressful situation, we can't move through the steps of rain, but you can do it before situations you anticipate are going to be challenging, you know, a meeting with a particular colleague that you find difficult, and you can do it

after an interaction that's been conflictual or felt reactive. And either way, they're actually training your heart and your mind to be able to respond in more creative and helpful ways in the future. So what comes to mind right now is one woman I was working with who's a nurse in a very large elder care facility. And she had felt a lot of tension with a supervising nurse. She wasn't the only one. She told me how she just felt always like she was being criticized. This woman was criticizing her and scheduling her more than was appropriate and never acknowledged how much she was doing. So it was just a difficult relationship. And so she described after one particular demanding day, the supervisor made some sort of a slicing comment, you know, something questioning

her professional judgment about treating a patient. And she left angry. And that evening, she practiced rene. And the R of Rain was to recognize, oh, anger, okay, angry. The A of Rain is allow, which means, okay, just let it be here. Don't try to get rid of it. Don't judge it. Let it be here. The eye of rain is investigate. And she realized that she was believing, the belief she had was, I'm not respected. She doesn't respect me. And the feeling, in her body was hurt, she felt this kind of squeeze in her heart. The end of rain is nurture, and nurture means in some way to offer comfort. So she asked that place in herself, that hurt place, you know, what do you need right now? And she really felt like she needed to believe in herself,

to feel cared about by the universe. And she thought of her aunt, who also had happened to be a nurse and was a mentor of hers and imagined her aunt saying to her, I love you and I believe in you. And she just sat there with her hand on her heart, which is very helpful in nurturing, and just heard her aunt saying, I love you, I believe in you over and over. And it relaxed her. And then she, the last part of rain really is called after the rain, where she just felt a shift, that she was resting in a presence that was much more open and relaxed and feeling just warm. And from that space, she was able to kind of reflect on her supervisor, and she could see from that space, okay, she is a very anxious, overwhelmed person.

And she remembered some things she knew about this woman's life difficulties at home and so on. And it just softened her heart. And so the next day when she got triggered in the middle of the day, she did what we call a light rain, which is she just heard the message from her aunt. She just heard that same message, I love you, I believe in you. That's all she needed to do. And she just was less reactive. The following week, her boss was handling a,

a difficult situation with the administration. And afterwards, she complimented her, the supervisor. And things started softening. She started having more creative kind of responses. And here's what really went on, is that Raine empowered her. She went from being the victim to really having access to a kind of healing energy. So I share this story just to encourage you that if you're,

because so many, it happens to so many, if there's stress or tension with somebody at work, explore either before being with them or after a difficult time, practicing rain. And I think you'll find that it'll carry you to a much more wise and open quality of presence where you'll be just more creative and intelligent about how you then respond in real life. So another question here, and this has, again, has to do with applied mindfulness. How do we use mindfulness and compassion to deal with chronic pain and injury? Well, this is one of those universal ones, because we all end up having to learn to do that. And I'm going to ask you to speak in a little bit because you have done so much good work on this.

but maybe I'll start by saying there's a classic kind of phrase which is that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. And what that means is we can't avoid unpleasantness, but we can find a way relating to it that allows us more space, more balance in the midst. And you kind of get the image of think of waves of pain. We can find ways of relating that we have more of a quality of ocean-ness, so we can include them and not get so tossed around. And what's needed is curiosity and kindness as we bring mindfulness to what's going on. And so there's two levels of response when we're dealing with pain and injury. And one, and I'm going to start here, is dealing with the emotions, the attitudes that surround the physical pain.

and the second is working with the unpleasant sensations themselves. And the bottom line is, we are wired to not like pain. I mean, George Carlin put it so well, he says, my philosophy, no pain, no pain. And I went through in my 50s about five years of this downward spiral of illness, and there was a lot of chronic pain. And it was unpleasant. But the worst part of it was really my mind, what my mind deal with it, and how I was constantly interpreting it as, this is bad, this is a bad thing in my life, how long is this is going to last,

what's the cause, how do I get rid of it? And I'd go in these really bad, bad wormholes of, you know, this is going to get worse, what is it going to stop me from doing in terms of my work and my physical activity. The center part of my practice, just became noticing this spiraling narrative. I would have to again and again come into the moment, okay, these are just thoughts, and, you know, if it was fear, bring a lot of kindness to it. Sometimes I would speak to the fearful place in me and say, thank you for trying to protect me. I'm okay this moment. Thank you for trying to protect me. I'm okay this moment. And it helped a lot because I was doing this attitude check that actually created space, that I could be with the

unpleasant but bearable sensations, and I could be there for life moments I would have missed if I was doing those spiraling narratives about what was going to be wrong with my life. And, you know, I walk a lot in the hills and along the banks, along the Potomac River. and often my joints, my knees, my hips would be acting up. And there were so many moments I could have gone off into those spirals of how bad this all is, but because I was really practicing bringing mindfulness and kindness into the moment, there was space for it. And I could also hear the, you know, the sounds of the geese and the flowing water

and the sense of the wild rose and still live. love life. So it's really important to pay attention to the attitudinal part of things. But I also want to, you know, get into, okay, there's really strong unpleasant sensations and how do we work with those? And there's a, it's kind of a faux equation that is very helpful for many people. And it's pain times resistance, equal suffering. And what that means is when there's unpleasant sensations, but we don't resist, we don't energetically tense against them, they become unpleasant sensations, but not suffering. So I'm going to pause here because, Jonathan, you're so good at when there's unpleasant sensations guiding people in how to work with them wisely. I'd love to hear more from you.

Sure, yeah, there are a few things. I'm also aware our time is passing fast. But, you know, I think it's all summarized in one essential technique that I do when I go to the dentist. This whole idea of catastrophizing that you've talked about so beautifully, how the mind just fixates on what's wrong. So whenever I'm having a cavity filled or my teeth cleaned, obviously my mind, my tongue go to where the unpleasantness is. What I simply say to myself is my hands feel fine.

And there's something about that that's so simple but so powerful. And it's really learning how to kind of shift from focusing on the unpleasant, kind of on the potential for catastrophizing, to finding a place inside that feels neutral or maybe even positive. And what I find is when I kind of come back to my hands, And it's different anchors are helpful for different people. But if I have a migraine, a bad migraine, I just remind myself, my hands feel fine. And then it's almost like I can do little sorties from there.

You know, sometimes called pendulation, you know, where I can sort of like shift to where the unpleasant is, kind of get familiar with it. And then swing my attention back to where I feel that sense of ease or at least neutrality. and I inevitably I have this sense I can bear this, I can be with this. Not all at once, but in bite-sized pieces

and with attention, I can be with it. So that's a very quick run-through, but it's really an essential strategy that I find helpful for myself. And the other, just to say, is that when I'm really caught, for example, in a migraine

that's pretty crippling and shuts me down, the go-to phrase, that really helps me. Other people feel this too. And when I drop into that, and I've actually looked it up, there are like millions of people experiencing migraines all the time. It's not like the pain goes away,

but suddenly the frame gets bigger. And it connects me in some way that, again, it doesn't make it go away, but it helps me to bear it. That's beautiful. Thank you for that. So maybe we have time for one final question. And this is going back to the whole practice of rain.

I wonder if you might say a little bit more, because there are some questions that have come in around the A and the eye of rain. Like when you explore, well, what does that feel like inside? How does that happen? And also, some people say, accessing the sense of nurture is really challenging. So it's kind of a broad question, but maybe an invitation, can you maybe draw up in a little bit more to some of the nuance of the practice of rain meditation?

Yeah, so I'll make a few comments and maybe some tips on rain. And some of it, maybe I'll just do a brief guided rain practice and build them in there. But again, for those listening and not familiar, rain weaves together mindfulness and compassion. And it's a great, it's a great practical way to apply to difficult things. You know, one of the things many of us have experienced is the moments we most need presence to be centered, to be mindful. Those are the moments when we have absolutely no idea what to do. And so rain is easy to remember as a sequence.

The acronyms recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. So it's easy to remember and it needs customization. So, for instance, sometimes if you're very distressed, don't start with recognize. You need to just take some time to self-nurture as best as you can just to calm the nervous system. You know, just send a kind message inward. Even if it's mechanical, it'll help with some sort of a quieting down so you can actually practice rain. Sometimes you'll be doing rain with one thing, let's say fear, and you'll find that shame comes predominant. You know, our emotions are layered and the wisdom is start where you are and begin rain again with whatever has emerged.

It's like peeling the onion. You just stay true to what's right here. The A allow. It doesn't mean you like what's going on. Or even if it's a judgment, it doesn't mean you're agreeing with the content of the judgment. It's just an acknowledging of reality. Allow has that sense of, okay, this is how it is right now, letting it be as it is without adding judgment or trying to fix it. With the investigate, the biggest misunderstanding is that this is a mental or analytic investigation.

It is not. You are not trying to find the source of a problem. problem. It's primarily somatic. You know, that phrase, our issues are in our tissues. You know, you might ask the question, what am I believing? So you sense the belief that is going on at the same time. But the key piece is come into the body and feel where the feelings live in the body. And I find it really helpful to put my hand on my heart or my throat or my belly just because the hand on the body will help to keep the attention in the body, and also it actually starts bringing and nurturing, which is good at any time. I find it helpful to breathe into the place where there's

the most feeling to help stay in the body. It's also helpful to, let's say, the experience you're investigating is fear, shame, or sorrow, to let your face express it, even let your body express, it because that'll help you get in touch. The whole point is, the more when you're investigating you get in touch with the vulnerability, the more freedom they'll be. And then when nurturing, that is an experiment also where you can either sense you're offering nurturing to yourself, you know, your own wiser self to your small self, or you might sense it coming from a larger source, and it doesn't matter which. All that matters is if there's a quality of care that's coming inward,

and you can use touch, you can use words, a message, an image, to help that along. And the final thing I'll mention before just kind of guiding us through a bit is that the fruit of the practice shows up in after the rain, the moments after we've walked through the four steps. Just like after a real rain is when the earth is kind of saturated with water, it's when the fruits come when everything starts blossoming in a healthy way. That's the time to not rush through that onto the next thing, but stay. No matter what has unfolded through the four steps, there'll be some shifting,

some more full sense of presence. So take some moments during after the rain to notice the quality of that presence. Notice what shifted, because this is really the path to inhabiting more who you really are. Okay, so we'll do a guided practice as a way to conclude and just to invite you to maybe bring to mind something that in recent days has

evoked some reactivity in you, something that has brought up anxiety or irritation, not something traumatic, something that you'd like to have a little more freedom ruined. And when you have the situation in mind that you got triggered and you might zero in a little bit more and sense the moment

where you most felt disturbed or upset, and just notice what's going on inside you. And you begin rain with recognize. And you might whisper, either silently or out loud, whatever you want to name as whatever's predominant. And if there's a few different emotions, just notice which one wants the most attention. Just notice which one of those most wants attention.

So naming what's here, that's recognizing. the allowing, just let it be there. Like waves in the ocean, you might sense, this belongs, just part of the experience, allowing this life energy to be as it is. That allows you to investigate and bring on your curiosity here to really sense what's this like in my body.

And you might begin by just asking that question, what am I believing when this is happening? Maybe you'll find you're believing, oh, I'm falling short, I'm failing, I'm deficient, unworthy, or maybe you're believing someone else couldn't care if they're acting that way. But whatever you're believing, notice how, when you're believing it, what it feels like in your body, an experiment by letting the expression be on your face of what you're feeling and even your posture expressing it. and you might feel into the center of the vulnerability. It might help to put your hand on your heart to stay connected,

to feel that you're offering a curious and kind attention to what's right here. And just sense what that vulnerable place most needs. What's the quality of care at most needs? Does it need to feel accepted, understood, forgiven, loved, does it need to feel compassion? Offering. Just calling forward your highest, wisest self. You can do this.

And just offering inward maybe through the touch, very gentle, tender touch of the hand at the heart, offering a message that would be comforting and healing. And it feels difficult to offer yourself a message. Just bring to mind someone who's wise and kind, sense it coming from them or maybe from some formless sense of loving in the universe

offering a message and let in the sense of care just sense it bathing bathing you the cells in between the cells the spaces there just feel love care

filling you and taking a few full breaths notice the quality of presence that's here and sense what is shifted. Maybe there's a little more space, openness, kindness. Just noticing that this presence is more the truth of who you are than any limiting belief or feeling and that the more you get familiar with this presence, the more you'll trust and live from who you really are.

Okay, friends, if your eyes are closed, this is a good time to open them. And I want to begin by thanking you, Jonathan, for just being part of this with me. I know we had so many questions. We will do this again and continue maybe a part two, maybe a part three, who knows. But thank you so much. Oh, thank you. These are such rich questions and your responses are really beautiful. Okay, friends, many blessings. We'll be with you again.