Tara Brach - Meditation: Uprooting Limiting Beliefs with RAIN (2020-09-23)

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Meditation: Uprooting Limiting Beliefs with RAIN - This short reflection guides us in using RAIN (recognize-allow-investigate-nurture) when we discover we are caught in a limiting belief. Who would you be if you didn't believe there was something wrong with you? (an excerpt from the full talk, Freedom from the Prison of Limiting Beliefs, given on 2020-09-23)

The following reflection is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or reflections or to join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. So a reminder is this, that the Petri dish for fear beliefs is feeling separate, disconnected, isolated, and not belonging. To heal, to remember our intrinsic worth, we need to reconnect. we need to find our way back into a sense of belonging to ourselves and to each other and to our earth. We need to reconnect in love. In the moments that we feel, as I mentioned, inferior or superior, we've lost touch with that sense of worth, of that sacredness. Our judgment of ourselves, of each other, it obscures the goodness, the goal. So the prayer here is,

that will deepen dedication to honoring our own intrinsic worth, because that allows us to widen the circles so that we can realize the sacredness of all life everywhere. And this is absolutely needed for the healing of our world. So let's practice. Let's take a few moments if you'd like to shift your position so that you're comfortable. Take a few full breast. Now, scanning your life, you might bring to mind a repeated experience in a relationship that brings up suffering. Could be with a partner, somebody else in your family, friends, somebody at work. When you've identified an experience where you end up feeling hurt or angry or distanced,

ask yourself, well, what am I believing about? myself. See if you can recognize, are you believing that you're not lovable, that you're not worthy, that you're not able to handle things well, that you're going to be rejected? What's the deepest belief about yourself? So, recognizing whatever you can that you're believing, and for a moment allowing and allowing doesn't mean you're agreeing with what you believe, it means that you're pausing here so that you can begin to shine the light of awareness and begin to investigate. And you might ask yourself, is it true? Is that true about me? Is it really true? See if you can sense the possibility of real but not true. You might ask yourself how long

have I been believing this about myself? There may be some image that comes, some feelings, and then asking yourself, what has it been like to live with this belief, this limiting negative belief? How has it affected my relationships, work, moments, at leisure? How has it affected my body, my heart? And from the place in you that's most caring and wise, that's witnessing this, you might sense what's most needed. What is this part of you most need? How does it want you to be with it. What's the message that you might offer right now? What might you ask yourself to trust or to remember? And if it helps to call on a spiritual figure or a friend, part of the natural world, to help you offer care, just feel that you might have your hand

on your heart right now that you could offer care through your hand to your heart. Care and the wish or prayer to trust your goodness, to trust love, to turn your heart and to turn towards love, to take refuge in love, and then to take some moments to notice the presence that's here. The shift from the beginning of feeling a self that's in some way limited, the negative beliefs about yourself, to just this presence. It might be just a few degrees of more open and tender, are very profoundly so. And you might ask yourself, what would your life be like if you weren't believing something was wrong with you? Perhaps you can feel it in your body, increase freedom. Who would you be if you didn't believe something was wrong with you? And to feel

in the depth of your heart that longing and that dedication to waking up to the truth of who you and we all are to that sacred presence that lives through this life. When you're ready, please take a few full breaths, opening your eyes. And thank you, friends, for exploring this with me. Thank you for your presence. And I look forward to when we next are together. Namaste and blessings.