Tara Brach - Loving Ourselves into Healing - Part II (2021-12-22)

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Loving Ourselves into Healing - Part II (2021-12-22) - We are often at war with our difficult emotions—judging and hating ourselves for our fear, anger, clinging or shame. And as a society, we turn on others as lesser or bad, as the enemy. These talks explore how, in both domains, our continued evolution, healing and freedom depends on learning how to embrace what we have pushed away.    

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 part two of a three-part series called Loving Ourselves Into Healing. And I wanted to start with a story I heard many years ago that's always stayed with me It's about a four-year-old child whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who was recently widowed. His wife had just died. And one day, the little boy noticed that the man was outside on his porch crying.

So he went into his yard and climbed onto his lap and just sat there. And his mother looked over and saw her son and the old man sitting together. And when the child came home, his mom asked what he had said to the neighbor. And he said, I didn't say anything. I just helped him to cry. And I so often think about how the very essence of loving into healing, really, it's the quality of presence that we offer. The quality of presence that we offer. It's really about presence.

I read David Brooks article recently, and he told a story that was actually first shared by Rabbi Iliot Krucla. And the rabbi described a woman with a brain injury who would sometimes fall to the ground. And people would rush to immediately get her back up on her feet before she was quite ready. And she told the rabbi, she said, I think people. rush to help me because they're so uncomfortable with seeing an adult lying on the floor. But what I really need is for someone to get down on the ground with me or someone to get down on the ground with me. And as I read that, I thought, what a beautiful description of compassion, you know, getting down on the ground with each other, feeling with. And I often think about our

evolutionary history and in the history of our species, we can actually see a distinctive emergence of this capacity for relational care. It's described as happening between 75,000 and 100,000 years ago. And it correlated with this rapid development of mirror neurons. It's related to the social network in the brain. And this is when human evolution went into a kind of hyperdrive, with this social network in the brain, where we began to develop language in the way we have now and the capacity to collaborate and much more sophisticated tools. And a key element really is empathy, this capacity to directly know what others are intending and feeling. So evolution selected for a social network in the brain because being conscious of our

interconnection, it gives us an adaptive advantage. It supports surviving. We need to share food and collaborate at work and in many levels to flourish. And really, in a deep inner way, we need to be able to get on the ground with each other. other to heal. You know, it requires a shift from that sense of on myself and here and others are out there to the felt experience of we, that we belong to each other and to a larger whole. So this evolving of relational consciousness, it's the essential ground for true healing and spiritual awakening. And this is what

we'll be talking about in the first talk last week, loving ourselves into healing, was really about embracing the inner parts of our being. We talked about having tea with Mara, Mara being the different challenging energies in our psyche, getting on the ground with those parts that feel vulnerable, frighten the places of suffering. And in this talk, we'll explore the shift from eye to we, with those we know, with the circle of more immediate relationships. And then next week, the third talk will be our continued evolutionary unfolding, moving from us, them, to the most inclusive we that really is all beings, that are collective belonging. And clearly we're quite in the thick of that process. So what we can think of it is,

widening circles of belonging and it's often described in Buddhism as the path of the Bodhisattva. Bodhi is an awakening, satva being. And it's really a path we're all on, which is really the awakening of our hearts and minds to include and love all of life, to really realize our belonging to all of life. So I often draw on Rumi one particular verse that really, I think, guides us in this process. And Rumi writes that your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you've built against it. And so what are those barriers? and we can sense that the barriers are the beliefs and emotional reactivity, the wants and fears

that keep us feeling separate or deficient, threatened. So in the moment that, let's say we're caught in a limiting belief, like, I'm unlovable, or you're bad, we're in a trance, we're cut off. We're caught in the energies of Mara and we're defending ourselves. or we're angry or fearful, but we've lost touch with a bigger reality, with our own realness and wholeness and others become unreal others. So when the barriers are up, when we're in those limiting beliefs and the reactive feelings, others become unreal others.

And here's something we forget. that when we're stressed and in that reactivity in trance, this othering happens with those closest to us. It's not just those out there, but we other the people were most regularly engaged with. Patterns set in can be resentment or hurt or self-judgment or guilt, but patterns set into our close-in relationships that actually bar a real feeling of closeness or intimacy. And those patterns can go on for weeks and for decades. There's a woman from our meditation community who volunteered at a local hospice

and shared a story about a patient she had befriended. And this is what she told me. She said that Charlotte was often anxious and depressed. and as she neared death, she was increasingly mute due to this tumor that was growing in her throat. And one morning she found Charlotte really distraught because Charlotte had this nightmare. And she dreamed that the staff told her she had only three days to live. And she was there. She was her weak and raspy voice sharing this with this woman.

And she said, I'm not ready to die at. You know, I'm not ready. And she told her she had something important to say, to her husband. And so much to this woman's astonishment, three days later, Charlotte was packed and about to go home because the tumor had shrunk dramatically. The next time this hospice worker visited, Charlotte had returned. And she seemed deeply at peace. And here's what she told this woman. And this woman wrote down the words and us I'm reading now. Charlotte said, I was angry at my husband on his case all through our years together. His work, his tennis always came before me. He was too

permissive with our kids. He was always intellectualizing, but couldn't express his feelings, couldn't fix things around the house, and the list goes on. I was always angry about something. After 20-some years of our marriage, he became close with another woman. He was honest about it and didn't sleep with her, but I never got over it. I guess I already felt rejected. Even from the early days, I couldn't forgive him for not making me feel special. What I saw was this guy who was letting me down, not on my side. I forgot his basic decency and care. It wasn't until that dream that I realized I needed to tell him I loved him,

that I regretted nothing more in my whole life than how my judgments drove us apart. So I told him, and he listened. And he shared his regrets. And we hugged. We both had tears streaming down our cheeks. was the first closeness in years. Now I'm ready to go. So I share this story. It's always moved me that whether it's a relationship with deep wounds and divides like this one, are the relationships where we've just gotten habituated to living with some ongoing distance

or defendedness or resentment. It's so easy to let relationships slide. and think, well, think we're busy now or maybe later, there'll be more time, maybe things will change. It's so much easier than to actually reach out and try to connect more authentically. And I often think about the greatest regret of the dying being not living true to ourselves. All these people interviewed, that's what they said, I didn't live true to myself or true to my heart. and that's really postponing or neglecting what matters. So one of the wise remembrances on a path of awakening on a bodhisattva path is don't wait, don't postpone matters of the heart.

And it's really valuable to view those in your life in a daily way with this lens of, well, what if this was my last encounter? What would I want to communicate? What I want to feel? What would I want them to feel? So today's reflection, I'll be inviting you to examine a relationship with a dear one where you wish there was more closeness, somebody that matters to you, where you wish there was more closeness, where you feel some separation, not a major wound, not where you're feeling something's unforgivable or living with some real trauma, but just where you feel like you've gotten caught in some ongoing pattern with them of distancing. And we'll look at how we can release the barriers to more of a flow of loving.

So as I continue, you might be considering who you want to practice with. But first, let's look more broadly at the ways we, distance from others, you know, when we're stressed, our survival brains become more dominant and we filter life in terms of our wants and fears. So unreal others. People, when we're stressed, become either an object to satisfy wants, in which case we're in some way grasping, or an object that's causing aversion in which we're some way pushing away. Or they become an object that doesn't matter. And then because we're also attached to our time, to save time, we just ignore. Don't pay attention. On the last form of othering, I often think of this cartoon I saw a long time ago

where a guy's sitting at home and he hears a knock at the door and he opens the door and he sees a snail on the porch. So he picks up the snail and he throws it as far as he can do. three years later, there's a knock at the door, and he opens and he sees the same snail. And the snail says, what the heck was that all about? Selly, I know. So let's look more closely at how we distance with wanting and fearing. Because these are the core energies of Mara. These are the barriers to loving when we get caught in them. And as you'll remember with Mara, the first step is the Buddha said, I see you Mara, let's have tea. You have to see how the wanting or the fearing is interfering.

So with wanting, you know, our basic needs are to feel loved and understood. And for so many of us, whether it's due to parenting or genetics or culture or trauma, these needs are unmet, different degrees, but they're unmet. And to the degree we have unmet needs, the wants in our relationships become charged. Makes sense. You know, instead of feeling love, we're grasping after love and usually doing it through substitutes. We're trying to get other people's approval or attention. sexual engagement or, you know, we also grasp after other substitutes through people like money or protection, them doing things for us. But the point is when our wants or charge, others become

an object, a vehicle towards meeting our needs, feeling gratified, feeling enough, feeling safe, feeling good. When we're in wanton mode, when there's an agenda, it obscures who's there. We're in a trance. It's like you think of it like if you're on a road trip going somewhere and you really have to pee, you don't quite take in the scenery. You're just like tracking for where the next, you know, fast food store or gas station or something is so you can pee.

or as they say in India when a pickpocket sees a saint, they see the saint's pocket. So we don't see who's there. And our attachments are often the strongest with those who are closest. So we're often not taking in their subjective reality. It's more we're more kind of filtered by our wants. I love the writer of Florida, Max, describes it this way, Florida Scott Maxwell. She says, no matter how old a mother gets, she still looks to her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. Being the mom of an almost

middle-aged child, you know, I get it. So when one thing takes over, not only do we not see the other, but we're living in a kind of small, confined space of self, a self that's in some way dependent on the other changing, and potentially a self that's going to be angry or let down if we don't get what we want. And when we're wanting something from another, we present ourselves in ways to get what we want. We try to create an impression. I mean, just think of how often on some level we want another person's approval or for them to like us and how in those moments, in some way, how we're acting is to get that, to get that response. Silly example here, another one, 11 people hanging tight to a rope, angling from a helicopter. There's 10 men,

one woman. They agree that somebody needs to drop off or the rope's going to break and they'll all be killed. So after a lot of back and forth, the woman finally says in a kind of grand way, okay, I'll be the one to do it. Went on to say, this is what women do. We sacrifice ourselves for the well-being of others. We do what we can to ensure that others are taking care of first. And when she was done, all the men started clapping. So wanting mind leads to controlling, trying to manipulate. Bottom line is, when there's an agenda, it blocks intimacy. and the stronger the agenda, the less intimacy. So you might reflect for a moment.

Just take a moment here and take a few breaths and bring to mind some recent encounter. And if it's not recent, just some encounter where you wanted something from someone else. You know you wanted their approval or you wanted their help on something. you wanted their attention. It really mattered to you that they liked you. And just notice how much of your behavior was shaped to in some way show yourself in a certain light, shape to get what you want. And sense into the experience of the wanting self,

when you're wanting something from another person. Can you notice how it makes you smaller? Let me just ask, is this who I really am? You might also notice in that occasion when you are wanting something, what was your sense of the other? How aware were you of the other in their dimensional humanness? Perhaps their needs or hurts or yearnings where they were at in those moments? Can you sense how when we're wanting something, the mind narrows and we don't take in so much information? The empathy closes down some.

You might even think now of somebody you were with recently who wanted something from you and what it was like. How seen, understood did you feel? And you could contrast that to somebody you've been with recently, maybe who had no demands or expectations of you, what that was like. And it helps you to journal about what it's like to be with others when you're wanting or they're wanting, please feel free. So that's one part of Mara is the wanting energies

and the other is the aversive energies. And these are the reactions like when we're with somebody and we feel a lot of judgment of ourselves or them, when we anticipate being hurt or rejected or controlled or that they're going to demand something of us, they're going to take advantage of us. That's when aversion arises. So, as with wanting, when we are aversive towards another person, at whatever level, there's

a narrowing of the mind, there's a fixation. We don't see a dimensional being. We just see the, it's part of the negativity bias, we just see what's potentially threatening or wrong and we contract. A friend shared an email with me about this. She said, I was annoyed that someone was driving so slowly on the highway. I pulled up close to get behind them to get them to go faster. And when they didn't, I passed them and saw the driver was a woman who looked just like my

Nana, who was very old and still driving to visit my grandfather in a nursing home. I imagined how scary it might be to have someone tailgating you like that and how many times it might have happened to my Nana. I realized I had a lot of judgments about people being too old. to drive without thinking about what it must be like for them. So again, when we're in the moments of judging our version, the mind shrinks. It becomes tight. We lose touch with empathy, with compassion. We don't see others clearly. And we're cut off from our own wholeness. So there's no way of healing the root of grasping an aversion, the unmet needs, and there's no way of moving

towards intimacy if we don't bring our attention inward. In other words, if we keep playing out from the aversion or the wanting, we cannot move to more closeness in our relationships because we're not addressing the barriers. And this is where the U-turn comes in. And we're moving now to how do we become more intimate with others. And that is that whenever there's that flag of, oh, I'm wanting something or oh, okay, aversion, it's an invitation to deepen attention by shifting from focusing outward on the other, what I want from them or what I don't like about them, to, oh, the energy of wanting and aversion. We go inward.

And this is, just as we did having tea with Mara last week, that's the first step of beginning to wake up our hearts with each other. Thought by way of illustration, I'd share a story that happened with Jonathan, my partner and myself, where Mara took the form of my strong anger towards him. And so it happened. It was at the end of a very busy stretch of work. We had very little time together. But we had set aside six full days and we were going to go into a beautiful natural area.

It's about 2.5 miles away from D.C. metro area out of town. And we're really looking forward to it. Kind of a personal retreat for us, a couple's retreat. And right before we left on this trip, Jonathan realized that he, He needed to be back in town for a half day of teaching right in the middle, which basically took out the full day because of the driving. And since he wasn't going to be back until late at night, we would lose a good part of the next day, the morning too.

So it really hit me, right? We started our vacation, but it was really the day before he left that it really hit me. I could feel his guilt and his tightness. And I couldn't even talk about it. I was so angry and reactive. I couldn't even talk to him about it. So I took one of those formal timeouts because he knew I was uptight. And it took 45 minutes to do this U-turn and have tea with the way Mara was inside me. And as many of you know, I used the rain practice with strong feelings where I recognize the anger.

That's the R of Rain and A is allow it. And I'd investigate the anger and the belief was he doesn't care enough about me or about us to call boundaries, to create our space. And then that was followed by a sense of shame about being angry and then shame about feeling so vulnerable that I was really wanting things to be different and feeling insecure that he wasn't prioritizing us and me. And so I had to just let all of that be there, but I could feel the suffering so my attention got much gentler and under the anger and under the shame, I could just feel this young place

that didn't feel lovable or prioritized. And that brought up a lot of self-compassion, the end of nurture, where I, as I often do, put my hand on my heart and I imagine and sensed a lot of loving, light energy just flowing through me. I imagine myself really held by the love in the universe. and I was left with this kind of sad but much more spacious, open-hearted kind of place. And so we talked and there wasn't blame. I was more in that spacious place. And because there wasn't blame when I shared my insecurity and my sorrow for losing time together, he could get on the ground with me.

And when he shared his guilt and his feelings of defendedness and personal badness, his own vulnerability, I could get on the ground with him. And we both re-realized, and this happened so many times in life, that there's just no healing possible without that you turn of first seeing what's happening inside, offering compassion so that we can widen out and really engage from a larger place. So some of you might hear this story and be wondering, okay, well, I can do that if another person's participating, doing their own work. You know, I'm willing to meditate and do that inner rain, make the U-turn and so on, but my partner or my spouse doesn't even try. I mean, they're always blaming me.

They're not owning their part. And I'm sharing that because it's common and it's true that when others aren't willing to examine their own psyche. and lock into blame, it's hard. I often think of this. Some of you might remember this little story where a little girl asks her mother, how did the human race appear? And the mother answered,

well, God made Adam and Eve, and they had children, and so all mankind was made. And then she asked her father the same question a couple of days later. And he said, well, many years ago, there were monkeys from which the human race evolved. She's completely confused.

She goes back to her mother and said, Mom, how come you told me the human race was created by God? And Dad said that they were developed from monkeys. And the mom responded, well, dear, it's very simple. I told you about my side of the family, and your father told you about his. So it's true in many relationships, partners, friendships, there's an unevenness in how attentive people can be and how accountable they can be for what's going on in them. And first off, it's important to view that unevenness with a wise heart,

that people have varying capacity for vulnerability. And it's due to differences in parenting and in genetics and experiences of trauma and more. So I look at it like it's grace to have that capacity to open, to what's here that's difficult to take responsibility, to be able to respond. And it's not blame or fault when somebody can't. And this is really important. If you're in an uneven relationship with a friend or a family member or your partner,

that doesn't mean that change can't happen. if the person with more capacity, more skill, is able to do the inner work that you turn and bring self-compassion and then from that place open up their compassion for the other and live from that, that can shift the dynamic. That can make it safe enough for the other person to begin to explore because there's not going to be as much defensiveness. So there can be a shift towards opening. And people often say, yeah, but why should I do all the work?

And it's so important to remember that the work is for the freedom of our heart. It's empowering to know that you can take responsibility for what comes up in your psyche, that you're not a victim. And if your inner work leads to less defensiveness, less taking things personally, less aggressiveness, less selfishness, you're more free. And you can trust, this is an entirely inter-influencing universe. Whatever you call your own healing and freedom ripples, it's just not in a predictable way, how and where. You know, I often share how with Jonathan, once either of us is able to do the inner work and then see the other with compassion. It's called

role reversing, really be able to sense life from the other's perspective. That's when the healing starts. We have this kind of phrase that the first person who can roll reverse wins. And it's fun. And I just keep finding out over and over again. My big personal takeaway so regularly is that the more I can recognize the suffering of judgment, any judgment, how in a moment of judgment I'm in trance, the more I get that, you know, that I've left reality, I've contracted from who I really am, and the more I realize the only way towards freedom is to let go of the story of blame and discover what's under it. In other words, to value that homecoming more than the kind of secure feeling of being right, my position.

In Buddhism, this valuing of awakening together of living from an awake heart is often described as the Bodhisatt's aspiration. We talked about the Bodhisattah path, the aspiration, the deep intention and longing on the path is that whatever comes up between us, whatever comes up in our lives, may it serve the awakening of compassion. May it serve the awakening of a wise heart. And if as you approach the barriers to love, which we're about to do, you know, just kind of looking at where there's distance and what's causing it, and you remember that aspiration, may this too, may these barriers be part of the path of awakening,

it will energize and guide you. So let's practice together. And I invite you as I always do when we're about to practice to let this be a pause, to take a few full breaths and invite yourself to arrive, bringing to mind a relationship, somebody you care about, where there's some habit of distancing. Again, not some great injury, just a pattern. of creating separation that you'd like to end and just feel your aspiration.

It might be that you sense that life is impermanent, just you're at the end of your life looking back, what would be your intention with this person? And just sense the quality of heart and awakening that you'd like to see in this relationship. And you might imagine being together with this person and in the way that you have in the past, and the kind of habitual distance that you're noticing. You might sense for yourself, what's between me and unconditional loving, unconditional care?

What's the barrier that's creating separation inside me? And maybe you'll notice that you're wanting something more that you're not getting, or maybe you'll notice some aversion, a sense of insecurity with this person, or resentment, blame, maybe you're feeling aversion that they're in some way going to take too much from you, ask too much, kind of defendedness. Whatever you notice, this is the time for the you-turn, for practicing the mindfulness

and compassion of rain, and you might just recognize what's the primary feeling that comes up when you sense the distance? Is it that there's some resentment? Is there some insecurity, blame, whatever you notice, see if you can allow it? Just know that this belongs like every other wave in the ocean. And you might go deeper with the investigating by sensing, well, what am I believing? When I'm feeling this, is it that they don't really care about me, they're not prioritizing me that I don't matter or that they're going to reject or judge me, that they're going to take too much for me, that they're falling short on their side of things, what they owe to the relationship.

What am I believing? With whatever you notice, sense the feelings that come with it, because that's what's important. Feel in your body, when you're believing that, what goes on, you might feel your throat, your chest, your belly. And when you're in that, in those beliefs and feelings, you might even let your posture and your face expression because that'll get you more in touch with, okay, so here's the barrier,

here's what's going on inside me when I'm in some way participating in creating distance, posture, your face, feel again into your body to where you feel most vulnerable inside, where you feel most activated, And you may just ask that part, what's needed? What do you need?

How do you want me to be with you? What would be most healing? And that's the opening to nurture, the end of rain. And I usually find it helpful to put my hand in my heart and begin to offer whatever's most needed. Maybe it's understanding or maybe forgiveness, protection, love, care. And if it's hard to offer it to yourself, just sense it coming from a larger source, from kind of the formless love of the universe,

or if it helps to imagine a deity or a person you know who's loving, who can help to nurture. But let in loving, let in compassion. You might add, imagine light and love just bathing you, bathing that place in you, really holding, tenderly, washing through. Notice the presence that's growing, through nurturing, through being mindful of what's happening, that kind of presence.

It's a larger space that you're living in. More clarity, more tenderness. And from that larger space, this is where the kind of bodhisattva awareness is really filling out, just look through the bodhisattva's eyes to the other and see that other person and sense for yourself what they might be feeling

or needing when you two are interacting. Are they needing to be affirmed that they're lovable? Are they needing to feel safe? Are they needing to feel attended to? You might even imagine what they're like

when their needs are met, what they might be like, so that you can take some moments to imagine different possibilities of how you might interact the next time you're together, what you might bring to that meeting, the increased amount of awareness and heart, and if it helps to journal in some way, please feel free. This bodhisattva training with this circle of beings that were involved with day to day, it's a life training. You know, we all have such strong conditioning to feel insecure, to defend, to aggress against others. And while we have the capacity for compassion and presence, it takes training to call it forth.

It takes practice. Whatever you practice gets stronger. And a part of that practice, and this is a final piece I'll mention, is to on purpose remember the goodness of others. Let that be part of your meditation. To remember that basic goodness, the love in them, the awareness that shines through them. And, you know, we know sometimes that happens spontaneously. It's easiest with children or being with those who are dying,

moments when a person's really happy or when people are being kind of us to really appreciate their goodness. and when we're appreciating there's a real beauty to it. We love goodness. It's beautiful to behold. And then when we let each other know being able to be a mirror of that goodness, it actually wakes it up even further in that other person. I often reflect on a story told by Rachel Remen's author and healer, doctor. And she describes her relationship with her grandfather, who called her Nishimala, which means little beloved soul.

And she writes about how when he died, no one was left to call her this anymore. And she was afraid God might forget who she was, that she would disappear. But she came to realize that really once blessed, forever blessed. And many years later, when in her mother's old age, her mother began to light candles and talk to God herself. Rachel told her about these blessings from her grandfather and how much they meant to her. And her mother smiled sadly and said, I've blessed you every day of your life, Rachel. She said, I just never had the wisdom to do it out loud. Never had the wisdom to do it out loud. So do we remember out loud to let others know what we see? It's such a gift.

It's so beautiful and it's so easy to become habituated and not really look and see and remember and treasure each other. I love the way Anthony DeMello is a Jesuit priest and a writer and a therapist puts it. He says, it is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation of seeing. When you serve people, you help support comfort and alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness, you transform and create. So, friends, we're talking about this bodhisattva training, you know, learning to love each other into healing.

And it involves seeing each other's vulnerability and also that inner beauty. And when we do, one teacher said, never push anyone out of your heart. When we see that vulnerability and that beauty, we include each other in our hearts. And another teacher put it this way, he said, don't ever give up on anyone. Don't ever give up on anyone. And it doesn't mean that we remove boundaries and relating with them. It means we keep our hearts open and remember that potential that's in all of us. us. It really is a life path, this shift from eye to we. And it just helps to remember you have

that capacity. It just needs cultivation. And there's nothing more worth dedicating to. And with our circle or immediate circles, that's like a primary place of practice and not to wait. It's part of the trance to postpone loving. So I started with that story of that child helping the elderly man to cry, how we're really learning how to get on the ground with each other. I thought before closing, one final reflection from children, this is children interviewed about what they thought love was. One writes, or one says, when my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. Another, when someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know

that your name is safe in their mouth. And another, love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. Another, when you love somebody, you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. One more. You really shouldn't say I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. So let's close together, a final short reflection on this Bodhisattva path.

And breathing, feeling this body sitting here breathing, and take some moments to bring to mind someone who's easy to love, not a complicated relationship. And see that person as if maybe for the first time. So you're not remembering from past knowledge or experience. Just sense them right in your mind right now. And just look for the things that you might have missed because you're not being fresh.

You know, what they're like. Just really what they're like. Their expressions of happiness when they're sincere. year when they're expressing love. Discovering anew. Sensing what you love. And you might mentally or actually whisper out loud, thank you. Thank you.

And then perhaps saying their name, I love you. Sense them receiving. Sense how by mirroring and expressing love, the field of loving grows. more filled with light and aliveness. And perhaps one more person. Again, seeing them fresh, sensing who this being is, sense their aliveness,

the way their heart expresses when they're not feeling fearful, when they're feeling more free, what it's like to feel their love. And again, you might just say thank you and I love you. And imagine them receiving that. Feel your own heart.

Feel these two beings and feel really all of us. And this dedication to loving and to healing, how many really long to wake up their hearts, just to feel all of us. The shared heart space that extends in all directions. You can imagine it and feel it. And that shared prayer. that all beings everywhere wake up to trust their basic goodness to live from loving awareness,

that all beings everywhere know the natural joy of being alive and that all beings touch a great and natural peace. May there be a growing peace and justice and compassion on this earth. beings awaken and be free. Namaste friends and thank you so much for your presence and your attention wishing you all blessings. For more talks and meditations and to learn about my schedule or join my email list please visit tarabrock.com.