Tara Brach - Healing Self-Doubt

Episode Date: November 3, 2013

2013-10-30 - Healing Self-Doubt - Siddhartha Gautama’s last challenge before enlightenment was doubt, and to some degree, most of us live with limiting beliefs about our own worthiness and goodness. This talk looks at the tenacity of self-doubt and the power of mindfulness, investigation and compassion in releasing its grip.

This last week at our week-long retreat, we have, as some of you know, we have individual interviews for those that stay during the week. And during one of them, one woman I was with was describing some of the challenge she was going through and really trusting herself, trusting herself as a good person, as a, you know, how she's doing in her parenting, really her quality of care. and just really in a deep way judging herself. And I shared a story I often share in those circumstances,

which is the most famous part of the Buddha's mythology. And this is a story of the night of the Buddha, and he's under the Bodhi tree. And during his time under the Bodhi tree, the tree of awakening, he encountered all the shadow energies. That was his experience. It came that the god Mara is the god of the shadow side, greed, hatred, delusion. And so through the night of sitting under the Bodhi tree, the slings and arrows and weaponry of Mara was slung at the Buddha.

And through the night he met it with a real quality of mindful awareness and of cart. And as the story goes, all the energy. of hatred and of aversion and passion and greed and so on, they'd come at the Buddha and they'd turn into these flowers in his energy field and by the time that Morning Star was beginning to appear, there was a heap of flowers in front of the Buddha. Then Mara pulled out his final great challenge. This is the last one, the big one.

And some of you might know what that one is. Anyone want to say it? What was the final challenge that the Buddha encountered? The final part of the shadow side. Anyone? Yeah, doubt. Mara basically said to the Buddha, at that point he was called Siddhartha,

he wasn't a fully enlightened being. He said, who do you think you are? You know, that question, who do you think you are? To really assume the seed of a Buddha, to assume that capacity for an awakened heart and mind. And the Buddha, you know, again, was meeting all of this with a great amount of mindfulness and compassion.

But when that final challenge came, this was a big one. He shifted gears a bit, and I'm going to tell you later how he dealt with it. But by sharing with this woman that what she was dealing with was the final and great challenge that Siddhartha Gautam encountered, she felt like she was in good company. she was relieved a bit and so it can be for all of us that self-doubt to some degree is

universal for any of us especially born in this culture for the Buddha the doubt that he was dealing was you know do I really have the capacity to be free? Is there Buddha nature here

is this nature to be fully awake fully loving my essence That was the question, and that's where he wasn't completely certain or full. And so it is with us that we get shaky in some ways on the basics of, am I really lovable? Am I really worthy? Do I have something to offer?

Am I ever really going to be intimate or close with others? Can I connect? and the more that we encounter kind of repeating patterns, the more that self-doubt gets fuel because when our insecurities or selfishness or defensiveness or tendency to control comes up, there's some place in us, the part that's always seeking evidence we're not okay that goes, that's it, this has been here since I was, you know, just a we being. and the basic conclusion is that this badness is a core defining feature of who I am.

That's the hub of self-doubt. So what it comes down to, and this for the Buddha and for us, is that depending on our sense of identity, our sense of who we are, we're either going to be living in a sense of, of doubt, or we're going to move over towards freedom. But identity is the key piece. I last year gave a talk about how solidified our sense of identity can get, how much, how hard

it is sometimes to let go of our habitual and limiting sense of identity. And someone sent me this. A Protestant moved into a completely Catholic community and being good Catholics, they welcomed him into their neighborhood, but also because they were good Catholics, they didn't eat red meat on Fridays. So when their neighbor began barbecuing some juicy steak, one Friday night, they began to squirm. They were so annoyed they went to talk to him about, and after much talk, they convinced him to become a Catholic. The next Sunday, he went to the priest, and the priest sprinkled holy water on him and said, you were born a Protestant, you were raised a Protestant, but now you are a Catholic.

And so the next Friday as the neighbor sat down to eat their fish, they were disturbed by the smell of roast beef coming from the neighboring house. They went over to talk to the new Catholic because he knew he wasn't supposed to eat beef on Fridays. When they saw him, he was sprinkling ketchup on the beef and he was saying, you were born a cow, you were raised a cow, but now you are a fish. You are born a cow, you are... So some aspects of our identity do seem enduring. So I want to take a closer look at self-doubt,

because when we kind of hone in, self-doubt presents as a cluster of repeating beliefs about ourselves that go along with feelings of shame or feelings of fear. And the reason we're exploring it tonight is because when this cluster arises, And for some of us, we know the cluster because we're just feeling that sinking, feeling of shame, of badness. And for some of us, it's like there's really a voice in our head saying, you blew it, you're a failure,

you're always going to be a failure. So we have different entry points. It doesn't matter what our entry point is to the cluster. But when we're caught in some way in self-doubt, if we can take it as an opportunity to practice, there's a possibility of a profound kind of freedom. So if we can slow it down and bring a mindful awareness and as we'll explore tonight,

have a kind of investigation so we can unpack it a little bit in that loosening up, we can begin to weaken the certainty of our beliefs as we shine the light of awareness on them. They don't have to feel so true. and we can begin to release some of the grip of the fear and shame so we can start sensing who we really are beyond those emotions and beliefs. When we're judging ourselves, when we're down in ourselves,

our true nature is obscured. It gets in the way we can't see it. So tonight it looks for how do we pay attention so we can begin to loosen that kind of thick cluster that really can define our lives. So to begin with, to say that beliefs have a lot of power, there are assumptions about reality that we use to guide us. And they tell us what we can trust and what we can't trust,

what's going to enhance us. You know, this is good, this is going to be positive for us, this is bad. And so we have a lot of good bads. And we do it both individually and on a societal level, our consensual beliefs about what's wrong, let's say murder, at least in some circumstances or what's good, let's say charity, they're behind our laws, our rules and regs that help us to have some order in our world. And of course, as we grow up, our sense, and some people are more, you know, have stronger

beliefs and have more rigidity and right and wrong than others, but we all have some, and at different ages we have different places that our attention goes as to what's right and wrong. For example, one woman writes, I was driving with my three children one warm summer evening when a woman in a convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked. As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five-year-old shout out from the back seat.

Mom, that lady isn't wearing a seat belt. We have different senses of right and wrong. In a similar vein, a little boy got lost in the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched an amazement and then asked,

what's the matter? Haven't you seen a little boy before? So we're wedded to our beliefs at different ages, but the bottom line is you know what it's like to have a strong belief and have someone disagree with you, that feeling. So what is it that makes it so that it's so hard to have people disagree with us

when we have strongly held beliefs. Our identity and our beliefs are really wrapped together. There's a real sense of I am my beliefs. And if you don't agree with my beliefs, you don't agree with me in a deep way. And it requires defending our beliefs. And of course we see in history how much bloodshed has come out of that and making others wrong often.

You know, if you don't agree with me, you're wrong, you're bad. My favorite example in a religious domain on this one is the story of this Taoist master who likes to sit in his hut naked when he meditates. I seem to have a lot of nudity once tonight. I don't know why. I don't know what it is. We won't analyze, though. So there he is.

He's sitting in his cabin naked up on the top of this hill. And a group of Confucianists enter the door of his hike. They've hutt. They've hiked up the mountain because they intend. tend to give him a lecture on proper conduct, because again, this defies their beliefs about how things should go. So they see the sage and he's sitting there naked before them and they're shocked and they ask, you know, what are you doing sitting in your hut without any pants on? And the sage replies, this entire universe is my hut. This little hut is my pants.

What are you fellows doing inside my pants? So interestingly, our most persistent, sticky beliefs are the ones about our personal deficiency. The beliefs about our own self-limitation are the ones that seem to really go with us through time. And it has to do with our identity as a vulnerable and separate self. and you can see this in a really kind of universal way that all life forms feel vulnerable. I mean, it's just the nature of coming into life you feel threatened and dependent and potentially helpless

and the story, the end of the story, is always going to be the same for all life forms. It's over, right? So there's a sense of that, so our most primitive sense of identity because we're talking about how we feel about who we are. The core primitive sense of our identity is of a self that is having to fight for things, having to defend, having to run, having to freeze. It's the wanting, fearing self.

Now that's not the end of the story because as we evolve, and this is true for each of us too, we have this potential rather than just being in fight, flight, freeze, to send a kind of belonging to each other, to tribe, to community, to earth, that actually enlarges us so our sense of identity shifts. And what you might say is the amount of trust we have or self-doubt depends on our degree of belonging. How much do we perceive belonging? Does that resonate for you? That's the key feature in trust. that if we're raised in a way, and this is to do with culture and caregivers and then our experience through time, it's conditioned. If we're raised in a way that early on there's a kind of resonance field where there's a response to our needs,

we feel like there's somebody listening and caring, if we're in a field where there's some mirroring back of our basic goodness. And that doesn't mean wall-to-all praise, by the way. In fact, too much praise is not useful, but an honest seeing of our aliveness and our sentience and our heart, that's mirrored back. We then can belong to ourselves and others and feel a sense of being part of something larger. Trust. If instead that potential for belonging, there's a kind of severing and there's a lack of

responsiveness. If there's a sense of, whether it's extreme in the sense of abuse or neglect, just not being seen, then it's all a matter of degree, then there's some doubt. Am I okay? I remember somebody shared the story on NPR where a four-year-old was given a paint set and she was thrilled because she discovered that yellow and blue together made green. And she told her mom and her mom said, well, when your dad comes home, show your dad. And her dad, a stockbroker, did come home and he arrived, you know, listening to his cell phone. And he's walking around the house quickly getting some things he needed and he's still on his cell phone.

Then he goes into his office to switch to the landline. And meanwhile, she's running after him waving her picture with all the green in it. Daddy, Daddy, look, look. So then he's standing up in his office talking. She's tugging on his trousers trying to get his attention. And he looks down and he says, Melissa, what are you doing down there? And she says, Daddy, I live down here. You understand.

It's like not seen, not attended to. So when this happens, which is, again, you know, we're in a culture it's not our parents' fault. This is back and back and back through the generations, but we're in a culture where there's a lot of anxiety and fear and competition. And institutionally, our institutions have embodied

a lot of the beliefs that perpetuate a sense of separation and putting down minorities and praising certain qualities that only some people have. It's a tough culture to live in. So between the culture and our parenting, we're not mirrored well and we don't have that trust in basic goodness. We develop a false self, a space suit self that can help us get by and help us get some of the love we didn't have through substitute means, get respect, stay safe. And that ego self that we develop, you know, we heap on trying to shine it and buff it up and present it so that other, we'll get the best we can in terms of.

of what we need from others. The challenge is we get identified with that false self, and no matter how much praise we get, our success we have, based on the false self, it doesn't go into where our being is, so it doesn't really work. So here's the basic teaching on this about self-doubt, that if your identity is limited

to exclusively the egoic, the personality or the body or the defenses or the or your intelligence any particular quality that you present to the world the striving self the achieving self if your identities hitched to that you will live with self-doubt the self you're identified with is a response to vulnerability and a feeling of separation so it's very hard to really trust basic goodness to shift to dissolve that doubt, to rest in trust, we need to discover a larger, more authentic sense of who we are, something beyond the egoic self. Now here's the conundrum, is that even though the false self, when it's buffing itself up and trying to get metals, even though it doesn't really work,

it works a little. It works enough so that we stay hooked on our strategies to get approval and attention and feel better about ourselves. So we're hooked on them, but it never really works. So we're kind of always trying to do the things that help us feel better about ourselves, and that could be, you know, achieve more. It's the not enough syndrome. If you have that, it's part of that. It's like, it doesn't matter how much you accomplish, you have to yet do more in order to keep fuel this endless hunger for affirmation. So one of the interesting things that comes out of this that many are familiar with is imposter syndrome, feeling like a pretender, like a fraud. There was a 1984 study of psychologists, randomly picked psychologists,

and 70% of them felt like they were in some way impostors. And even though it's, statistically, there's more women than men that feel it, you see it everywhere. I have, there's, with so many people that outwardly have every credential you could imagine for feeling well-established in the world, whether it's good works or the appearance, our fame, our fortune, just have it in spades. And underneath that, the sense that around the corner of people are going to find out who they really are and not like them. Wendell Berry You will be walking some night

It will be clear to you suddenly That you were about to escape That you are guilty You misread the complex instructions You're not a member You lost your card or never had one So you understand that when we are living From trying to have the ego feel better about itself

That there's something, there's some hole in there or some, it kind of covers over the very beingness and goodness that really is the source of our well-being. And you might sense for yourself, do any of the external successes that perhaps you've been seeking after and perhaps have found any of them, whether it's money or whether it's appearance or whether it's achievements, do any of them really help in trusting yourself more? Does it ever really work? Or do you have that, it's never enough part of you?

That's the part that's actually the invitation into something better, that we'll get there. So we watch ourselves, and we watch how the self-doubt makes us eager for affirmation and how we're highly sensitive to criticism. Well, we all are. Why? Because we're not so sure about ourselves.

Every criticism feeds that. Something's wrong with me feeling. Mark Twain writes, I can live for two months on a good compliment. And then here's George C. Scott. It's kind of a response. He says, there's no question that you do get pumped up by the recognition. Then a self-loathing sets in when you realize you're enjoying it.

It's a good one, isn't it? that the ego doesn't like itself for seeking affirmation. Do you know what I mean by that? So they say it's the Teflon thing. We're Teflon for compliments and Velcro for criticism. That it's the ways we try to feel better about ourselves are very, very temporary fixes, and the doubts can be very easily fueled and are very persistent.

So, just to inquire a little, because we're going to practice this, as you know, I like doing guided practices. I'll just ask you one question for now, which is, and if it helps, close your eyes. So the one question is, is there a persistent self-doubt that most appears for you? Something about yourself that most makes you question your okayness. some way that you behave with others perhaps some emotion or mood that keeps appearing some way of thinking

something about your heart maybe your heart maybe you feel blocked that you're not really loving just sense for yourself is there one doubt that if you were going to work on that tonight a little bit that really jumps out of where it makes it hard for you to to forgive yourself, accept yourself, trust yourself, feel kindly towards yourself.

For some people it's a sense of selfishness. For others it's a sense of the way we're hurtful to others. It tells us that I'm basically not a good or kind or caring person. For some it's that we're so controlling. Here's the follow-up question. What bad could happen if you let this go? what bad could happen and just check that out what could go wrong if you let it go if you didn't believe it anymore you didn't believe something was wrong

you can continue to reflect on that I'll just speak a little and if you'd like to open your eyes whenever you're free to it's interesting to sense what stops us from letting go of a limiting belief for many of us there's this fear that if I stopped believing this, the badness would get out of control. Or I'd never be able to fix it.

Or I'd get caught unawares and something bad would happen. If I started letting go of the belief I'm unlevelable, then all of a sudden I'd get rejected and it'd be even more painful. So it's like we'd rather believe something bad than let it go as long as it gives us some sense of control. Does that resonate for you? And I'm just going to look around. The best you can do is nod your head if it does.

Okay. Here's a story for you about, this is about the rigidity of our beliefs. This came from a book that I read, and it starts with the story of an Austrian woman named Clara. And she was made pregnant by a married uncle who, when his wife died, married her, and all her children die soon after birth.

Okay, that's her plight. Finally, the fourth child who is very, very sickly, she nurses him for two years obsessively. He tried to get away from the nipple. She'd force as if that would be what made him live. She was also obsessive about having a spotless house, and she lived in fear of her husband's beatings. Her son became exceedingly fearful as he grew up, and as an adult, he was a vegetarian, he was afraid of microbes, of germs, of dirt. He felt the blood in his veins was dangerous

Would bring about defects, feeble-mindedness He was afraid of gossip about his incestuous family Because look at his mother, you know, and his uncle He never had children He was afraid of tainted blood He was terrified of cancer Which took his mother's life And horrified that he had suckled at her disease breasts

He was also afraid of moonlight and horses Of snow, water, the dark of judges, Americans, old men, and poets. So how could anyone live with that much fear? Here's what happened. He seized on one all-encompassing explanation for the existence of sin and disease for his failures and disappointments.

There was no weakness in his parents, in his blood, and his mind. He was faultless. Others were filth. He could not change his china blue eyes he could change the world that they saw. He would identify the secret source of every evil and rooted out. He would free Europe of pollution and defilement. Only health and purity would remain.

Such are the grim and comic facts. Are these significant or merely interesting? Here's another. The doctor who could not cure Clara Hitler's cancer was Jewish. Beliefs are powerful When we have a lot of fear We either turn on ourselves I am bad so we can control the self

Or we put it out in the world You're bad And often we do both But in this case it was very clearly Out to the world So these beliefs That we have of something's wrong We didn't just get born and have them

We didn't decide I'm going to sign up for these beliefs of self-defici our culture conditions them. Our parents condition them into us, whether it's unworthiness or badness, and they solidify outside our conscious awareness. We're not aware that we're living with these filters that affect every experience we have with another person. If the filters, I'm going to be rejected, every person we're with on some way. That is shaping how we interact. You might remember how Gandhi put it, said our beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your character and your character

becomes your destiny. Okay so what we've got here is that for most of us there's some patterning that keeps replaying itself that has some if we're suffering at all that has some degree of limiting beliefs. If you're suffering, you're believing something that's not true, but that's squeezing you, that's filtering everything. And when it happens on the societal level and we don't examine them and loosen them, the fears and beliefs on a societal level, what do they lead to? Others are bad. The unreal other across the ocean are the unreal other who lives nearby but looks different.

It lets us make war on others. It leads to war, to social injustice. What happens when we have these beliefs and we don't examine them is in some way humans have the belief, I'm above nature, manifest destiny, that I'm entitled to plunder the earth. It leads to violence against the earth.

And in an individual way, when we believe in this not enough, we're at war with ourself, war with ourself, and it separates us from others. So I want to read you, this is Heldegaard of Bingen and she describes this filter of beliefs that we have in a way that I think is really powerful. We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is

not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. to use our own voice, to see our own light. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light. So this is a call to each of us to freedom, to know that, yeah, we have an interpreted reality going on. It's an implant, we all have some of it. It keeps us from truly seeing and trusting and living from

this incredible creative aliveness that's within us. It's an interpreted life to some degree. And I just find this a really powerful call to say, you know, let's take back our own listening. Use our own voice, see our own light. So the remainder of our time is just to look at how can we do that, how can we use these practices to take back our own listening

and to really sense the truth So there's a basic understanding that illusion, this filter of beliefs that we carry with us, illusion exists until it's investigated. You have to shine the light of awareness on it. And it exists in the world, you know, that we have to remove the illusions that are between us and unreal others. One of the examples I love of this of investigating, doing the listening, is a lot of, a story I shared in true refuge about a camp called Building Bridges, where they took teens that were from Palestine and teens from Israel and had them live together for a while.

And these were young people that had a deep sense of the other as the enemy that had really in very horrific ways affected their lives. Okay. And they have them together for a while and there's this process of honest sharing and of deep listing. It's like, who are you really underneath that unreal other? One of the teens said this. She says, if I don't know you, it's easy to hate you. If I look in your eyes, I can't. Okay, so this is the beginning of taking this veil of beliefs.

What do we do? we have to be with each other. We can't undo our beliefs of separation and you're bad or you're better until we're with each other. So that's interpersonal. But it's the same thing with our inner life. We can't undo the doubt that says

in some way I'm lacking, I'm a bad person, I'm unworthy, I'm unlovable, I'm never enough, until we begin to investigate our inner life. I'm going to give you an example of how to investigate. You'll recognize the acronym rain we often use for this mindful investigation, which is you recognize what's going on. Okay, suffering, caught in the grip of this self-doubt. And you allow it to be there so you can begin to investigate.

That's the R and the A. And the I is investigate with a tremendous kindness. and the end is the freedom not identified where we sense who we are beyond the kind of small self-identity. So here's an example of that, of working with self-doubt and the pain of it with one of when I was doing psychotherapy. It was a number of years ago now, man Jason, who he was presenting thing was that he was addicted to cocaine, and it was threatening to destroy his marriage and his career. And his appearance was, he came in, and he was this very fit, attractive, Latino man, who, seemingly confident lobbyist for an important industrial group.

He presented that way, but when he came to see me, he said the president of his trade association and his wife had requested he go to a 12-step program, or he'd lose his job and his relationship. So he'd gotten it from two angles. And so his initial thing was he was really angry that people were trying to control him. And he had a lot of fear about losing his job and his wife. So we began.

Now the entry places with whatever, when you're suffering, if it's strong fear, you start there. If it's a voice in the head, you start there. We started with the fear. And basically I asked him to be with the fear and feel it in his body. It was a kind of nodded kind of feeling

in his belly. And then I asked him from the perspective of the fear and you can try this out yourself from the perspective of the fear, what are you believing? What is the fear place believing is going to happen? What does the fear place believe

about yourself or your life? And for him the fear place was believing that he was going to be found out, that he was deep down, he was a failure, that he was weak, They believed he was weak, and the people wouldn't respect and like him.

So this was the kind of unworthy imposter syndrome that I was telling you about. I got a little background on him. He grew up in right outside of Buenos Aires. He had been bullied and shamed by his alcoholic father and then his brother. And his weight of dealing with it was he built a lot of muscles, then he ended up excelling at school, and then he ended up professionally excelling. so he kind of had this confident, strong exterior.

So, you know, he had a background of severed belonging and he had to build this persona. Then we, but then underneath it he could see that he felt like he was going to be found out. So I asked him, is it really true that you're unworthy, that if his wife Marcella, if she really knew you, she wouldn't respect or love you? And sometimes I ask that question, is it really true? Is this the truth?

Because just asking the question gets you to sense, hey, maybe this belief isn't. For him, he says, you know, intellectually I know it's not, but I feel so pathetic inside, it feels real. So keep that in mind that these beliefs, they're not just mental concepts, they feel real in our body and our gut. not easy to let go of.

So we began to pay attention to where the real pain was in his body and I asked him when he was believing, you can ask this to yourself if you have a strong belief, when I'm believing this, what is it like in my body? When I feel like a failure, when I feel I'm going to be found out, when I feel like people don't really care about me or love me

or want to be with me, what does it feel like in my body? And for him, it was feeling of shame and loneliness. And he was kind of, he was just, as I was asking him questions, making these circles, and he says this hollowness, this aching, like I've been building my abs for years to cover this hole. Asked him to keep paying attention to it. And he said, it's this black hole that's pulled my heart and everything else into it.

So then it was a process. This is the investigation under the belief, what he was feeling. and I asked him, well, when you're believing this, what's the effect on your life? And he says, it makes everybody pushed away. Everybody. It's kept me apart from everyone. My heart's been a black hole, lost in a black hole and so is my life. So that was when we just let him sit with that, be with that, bring that kind attention,

just feeling what have you been living with all these years as you've been believing this? because that's really the inquiry. What have you been living with all these years? I mean, how has it squeezed your life to believe something's wrong with me? And the more he felt it and brought a kind of kind attention to it, the more it started loosening,

and something else began to shine through. There was more presence kind of shining through. So I asked him another question. And that question was, what would it be like to live without that? belief? What would it be like to live without the belief that you're weak or unworthy? Asked a similar question, what would it be, who would you be without that belief?

These are questions I'm going to ask you to reflect on. Who would you be without that belief? And for him he said, you know, I don't know who I'd be but somehow not knowing feels good. Like all of a sudden there's space and I'm more alive. And then he said, if I didn't believe I was unworthy, I could relax here. I could trust that Marcella really does care. I could trust enough to tell her the truth that I love her. I want to pause here. Because when we're able to sense who we are beyond the belief, that's when we start realizing the possibility of loving freely without holding back. We want to love without holding back.

But we're afraid. So this, I'm just pausing to say, this is where you see the transformation, where from the investigating and getting touched, the end of rain is not identified with that small self. We're back to a vastness and a presence where you can actually let love happen. So that was when he really began weeping,

and it was a very beautiful kind of weeping. his heart was opening. Now I'm going to come back a little bit to Jason but I just want to name a few things on this process and then we're going to practice ourselves as part of the closing. That as he entered into it, the feeling of I'm deficient, I'm a failure, I'm unworthy, they're going to find out, he said, you know, maybe it's not true but it feels very, very real. There is a phrase that I've introduced a number of times I got from Sokney-rimbashay. It's real but not true. Very powerful.

Your belief that something's wrong with you is real in that it's really going on and it really creates a sense of shame or fear. So it's real. But it's not the truth of who you are. It's an interpreted kind of conditioned reality that makes you small until you deepen your attention. So real but not true was essential for Jason. It's real but not the truth. Now after this experience I just described

he said he had many rounds of getting triggered and wanting to drink and he found that and wanting to use cocaine and he found that underneath that it was that same vulnerability and I need to numb because it's too painful and something's wrong with me. But he he got a trick from one of his 12-step sponsors, and it was just to say not my will, but my heart's will. It's like it might feel real, but you don't have to go do this. There's a bigger truth. Let the heart lead right now.

So the entry point when you practice this on your own is any time you feel suffering, you can ask, well, what am I believing right now? What's going on? and a lot of the time you'll find that layered in there is a sense of something's wrong with me. That's the entry point. And then the inquiry is really to,

how is this in my body? What does it like to live with this? What does it like to live with this? The teacher, writer Byron Katie has taught a lot about this kind of investigation using many of these questions. So those of you that are drawn to it, she's a very wise and good source for this.

What's it like to live with this? belief. What has it done to my life? Those are important questions. They give you more perspective. And then, what would my life be without it? Now, back to the Buddha and then we're going to try this out. The Buddha was attacked by self-doubt, just like we're talking about, just like Jason had, just like most of us have. And his response, he'd been in this very established his presence where he sought for what it was, his heart was wide open. But in that moment he put his hand on the earth and he called on the earth goddess the whole living web of life, this is the divine feminine, to bear witness, to bear witness to his goodness.

So he asked for mirroring, really, right? He said, you know, he needed that mirroring, and he needed a larger truth, to bear witness to his true belonging, his goodness, his Buddha nature. And the earth goddess complied and bore witness. and as the story goes there was thunder in the heavens and there was lightning and Mara got completely freaked and disappeared and vanished and it was at that moment when he had navigated the attack of self-doubt that the Buddha's identity completely opened into its fullness of being and he was enlightened.

N of rain, not identified with the egoic self that has doubt, and instead resting in his natural wholeness, our beingness, our awareness, our love, whatever words you like. So let's practice. And as you close your eyes and sense for yourself, what is a place of self-doubt you want to work with, know that this is just going to give you a taste. What we do in a few minutes is just a sampler.

And so don't judge yourself. More try to get a sense of the sampler and then bring it to your life. The sensing where there's a self-doubt, something's wrong with me, a doubt about being lovable, worthwhile, good. And if there's a particular place in your life

where it gets triggered, you know, in a relationship with another person at work. If it's an addictive pattern, you're at the refrigerator or you shopping in a mall, whatever it is, just let the situation be there and then just raise the frame so you can sense, okay, this is me when I'm caught in not liking something about myself and really doubting my okayness. recognize and allow this is what's happening right now and it's an opportunity it becomes a portal to investigate. Okay so what is the belief? Can you sense what you're believing about yourself about your world but you're most afraid about things what your believing is wrong or is going to go wrong in those moments and just sense when you're believing something's wrong how does it

feel in your body and really let yourself go into that. You might tell yourself the negative belief and just so that you can really feel what happens in my body. You feel your throat, your chest, your belly and if it helps you to put your hand in your heart and really keep company in a kind way with what you're feeling, breathe with it. So this is how it feels when I'm caught in these limiting belief. You might feel tightness or ache or squeeze. or fear or shame. You might ask yourself, you know, is the belief true? Is it possible it's not true? Letting yourself sense what happens when you're believing it? When you're in that trance, as I think of it, just believe in the conditioned idea of things, feel your body, feel your heart.

You might even ask, well, how has this affected my life? How is it in my life when I'm believing this? What happens? What happens in my relationships with others? At work? Just in the moment with myself, what happens? You might sense if you want to offer some real gesture of kindness to the place, that constellation, the belief, the feeling, where you really get stuck where there's a feeling of being really caught.

whatever gesture of kindness feels natural to offer inwardly and you might ask yourself what would my life be like if I didn't believe this what would my life be like just spontaneously allow whatever comes up you might ask yourself who would I be if I didn't believe this and again just open yourself to what's here sense what comes through these questions are like reaching out and touching the ground of a larger reality, a larger truth of who you are. You can begin to sense real. Yes, the belief is real, the emotions are real, but not true. There's

something more. There's something beyond any interpretation when you listen deeply in this way. You can start sensing perhaps that you're resting in a great mystery that's filled with possibility, with awareness, with heart. Real but not true. There's a bigger truth. Just resting in presence for a bit and we'll listen and close with a few words from Mary Oliver. Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing to be dazzled, to cast aside the weight of facts, and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world, I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing, that the light is everything, that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom and fading. And I do.

Namaste and thank you for your attention. The talk you just listened to has been freely offered. If you'd like to make a donation, learn more about my schedule or about programs offered by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, please visit either my website, which is TaraBrock.com, our IMCW site, which is IMCW.org. Thank you very much.