Tara Brach - Meeting these Times with Courageous Love

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Many recognize that love is the antidote to the suffering in our divided world, yet finding the path to an open heart can feel more challenging than ever. This talk explores the full spectrum of love���both tender and open, as well as fierce, protective, and engaged. When we cultivate this courageous love, we are able to hold even those we see as enemies in our hearts. In its true form, this love is not passive or soft. As Martin Luther King Jr. described, it is a powerful soul force, capable of bringing healing and liberation to all beings. In this talk, Tara explores: how mindfulness serves as a powerful tool for cultivating compassionate awareness the importance of unarming our heart as a pathway to Radical Acceptance, the deep connection between courage and an awake heart the true connection that arises when we fully arrive in the moment. the power of the "sacred pause"—how presence allows us to open to love in difficult times

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste friends, thank you for being here. Last week, the Insight Meditation Community of Washington offered a free two-day event. It was called When the Rubber Hits the Road and it's really how to apply Buddhist teachings to difficult times. So it was a live. online event. And I want to share with you the talk I offer to those who gathered. The talk was called Disarming Our Heart, the pathway of radical compassion. So in this, I talk personally about some of my own process of disarming, of choosing love. And we look at how, especially in our current world,

our loving needs to include both the great tenderness, really being all-inclusive. and also a fierce dedication to protecting the vulnerable. We examine ways we perpetuate separation with others, and we close with a meditation, a practice of disarming, so we're meditating on someone we care about but have some conflict with us, feel some dividedness with. So, my friends, there is much suffering that arises in creating a bad other. You know, we know it, whether it's the chronic resentment of a sort of family member,

the hatred of political figures or a group of humans we find threatening, so much suffering. We offer our attention to this for our own freedom and also for the healing of the world. So thank you for being here and being part of this. It just feels so important that we're gathering right now. And I don't think I anticipated just what it would feel like. Such a time for us to see, okay, what does it really mean to meet our world with courage with an awake heart? And I've heard from a lot of people over these last months with their hopes and fears

of the world and I'll admit more on the fear-distress side of the equation, right? One of the most frequent questions that comes, and this is really regular, is how to deal with the anger, the hostility, my own anger and hostility that's coming up, that sense of us then that I'm part of, you know? And it's been a theme of this gathering and we'll continue. Because healing the divides between humans, and I'll see. I'll say also between humans and the rest of this living world, it's the crucible. It's the crucial challenge that we have.

Okay, so here's a quote that helps me. This is by Elr Nost says, Do not dismay the brokenness of the world. All things break and all things can be mended, not with time as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, unconditionally, the broken world waits in the darkness for the light that is you. Bill Hooks puts it this way. It's another one of my kind of posted on the wall. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. So, my friends, we'll explore this and I'm right in it with you, exploring. what it means to choose love. You know, a courageous love, an engaged love, one that serves our world.

And we'll practice some together. There's a few practices that I thought we'd explore. The gateway to loving is presence. Most of you are familiar because I feel like you've been in this kind of the IMGW circles, this wonderful line from Dorothy Postal Wade, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life. Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life. And we need to. We need to pause and come into presence to feel loving and to feel what's true right here. And one of the images I find really useful in kind of our predicament of when we feel separate or limited or endangered, we incarnate into this realm, this planet, and we develop a space suit, each one of us. And that's meaning by that. We come into this life and we develop ego defenses and beliefs

and personalities and so on to protect ourselves, to get what we need. And the suffering, and that's just natural and normal, the suffering comes because we believe we're the space suit. and we affiliate with others with similar style spacesuits. And we find the truth of who's looking through. The truth of this heart space, this formless sea of love, of light, of spirit, this essence. We forget. And so I think of the whole of the spiritual path really is the Dharma of remembering, the oneness, the we. There's a reading from Strasar Gadata that I love to share with you as we're kind of sensing

that field. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life, love, awareness that flows through you, flows through all that is and you are that life, love, awareness. Every living being in the entire universe are included in your heart. Okay, so the more we're stressed, the more there's fear, you know, personal life societally, like these times, the more forgetting. And we contract into this perceived separateness and get reactive and divided from others and from our own heart really.

And the primary sign, and this is the one I want to explore with you, is the bad othering that makes others wrong, less than us, less than human. And it's something I know you've been exploring, the bad other thing that creates us, them. And also on a conscious, our unconscious level, that also makes parts of our own being, often large swaths of our own being, bad and wrong. So the key understanding here is that this path,

this precious path, the bodhisattva path, path of awakening beings. The primary understanding is that this suffering of forgetting, of bad othering, can be our place of waking up if we're willing to deepen attention. This can be our place of remembering a larger truth, the very place where we go to sleep. And I often think of Joseph Goldstein, who says, don't waste your suffering. I really say that to myself a lot whenever I'm in a kind of a funky mood, don't waste your suffering. So to not waste our suffering, we need to deepen attention to these very places where our hearts get armored and to disarm.

To choose love, to act from love. So Ramana Maharshi puts her this way, don't push anyone, including yourself, out of your heart. Okay, so the big question here is how do we choose love when someone is dangerous and causing harm? I'm going to come back for this, but I wanted right from the start to kind of name that courageous love has two dimensions, a kind of yin yang, and one is that it's receptive. Love is receptive. It's all inclusive. It's tender. It knows our intrinsic belonging. All are included. And love is also active and engaged. It's clear, powerful, protective. Sometimes it's fierce. It's for the well-being and the justice and freedom of all.

So if you're bad othering, a dangerous person, choosing love means regarding them with compassion and out of love, doing all you can to protect yourself and others from harm. So, as I said, there'll be more in this. But just to, I think Martin Luther King puts it the best that love isn't weak or sentimental. It's a strongness point in the world. Soul force. It's the force towards true transformation. Okay, so let's look at disarming our hearts so that our love has that soul force.

and as many of you know, I know you know this, we have to start or at least not miss the inner. In other words, come back again and again to all the subtle and hugely overt ways that we arm against our own self. Because, you know, I often think that the most important truths are the ones we forget every day. And one of those is, if you are turned against yourself, you can't really embrace life. I mean, if we want to choose love and be part of the healing of the world, and oh my gosh, this world needs us, we have to disarm ourselves. Judging blocks love. It's that simple.

And self-judgment is pervasive. There are a couple of cartoons that illustrate how pervasive this is impoverative. insecurity and unworthiness, and one of them is this human on a couch explaining, I'm very laid back. I only care about two things. Every person on earth in their opinion of me. And then there's the elephant on the couch who says, sometimes even if I stand in the middle of the room, no one acknowledges me. And then the groundhog's shadow is on the couch. Everyone's disappointed when I show up. And there's two abominable snowmen. One's very dejected. The other's reassuring, oh, stop beating yourself up, Larry. You're not just

mildly unpleasant. You're truly abominable. Don't let anyone tell you different. Okay, last one. I have fun with these, so I'm sharing them. This is my favorite. The birds on the couch He says to the psychiatrist, my mother used to puke in my mouth. It is very difficult to breathe the atmosphere of this society with all its messages about what it means to be attractive, successful, likable, fun, productive, good, moral name a valuable human with all these messages

and feel at home and how we are. I mean, the messages are sent through our caregivers, they're internalized deeply. And if we investigate, there's usually a gap between how we think we should be and how we are in that moment. So it's deeply grooved,

again from psychiatrists and patient. Psychiatrists are saying these feelings of unworthiness are very common amongst the unworthy, you know, feels core. Okay, so the truth is we don't arrive with an ego space suit

that's at war with itself. This is conditioning, and it merges, to protect us against failure and loss. Of course, it's misguided, but that's good intention. And the more we judge, the more we're blocked from the very love and light of our being that would help us trust who we are. That's the double whammy. Most of you are familiar with the first step of disarming,

which is seeing, oh, okay, I'm caught in self-judgment, I'm caught in self-aversion, I'm at war, and offering a kind presence. But here's the thing I just want to kind of emphasize here. Even your intention to be kind loses the conditioning. It helps to release that identification with the spacesuit. Even the intention to be kind helps you to remember that basic goodness, who's looking through. Let's pause here. Let's just do a very brief practice just to kind of get that taste in our being. You might bring to mind a reoccurring situation where you turn on yourself

in judgment with aversion. So it might be an addictive pattern. It might be something to do with your body or your personality, the way your mind works, your emotionality might be something that shows up in a relationship. Those are most revealing, often our work. But whatever it is, just kind of slow down and zoom in and sense what you're judging and the sense of the judging and the aversion and the squeeze, the suffering that comes with that. Just take a moment for that. The more touch it, the more there's actually a chance to disarm. And see if you can sense this dynamic as conditioning from society through caregivers, a conditioned ego that's turning on itself, this misguided attempt to protect and improve.

You might even say this is not my voice or my thoughts. It's the conditioning, the spacesuit conditioning and just feel your intention towards healing. You might mentally whisper, please, may I be kind, your intention not to waste of suffering, your intention to disarm, to choose love. And in some way, I often like to put my hand in my heart, if that feels good to it. Send a message, send some kindness, in some way, offer care inwardly. And do this for your own healing and for a world. You might sense as you do, who are you when you're intending to be kind? Just intending even. Who are you when you're offering kindness? And if you have a glimpse of that space of tenderness, just know it as more true than any space suit narrative about what's wrong.

To sense the possibility of trusting a space of goodness. Okay, I'm aware that's a very brief and short but it feels important because being at home and disarmed inwardly is the grounds for choosing love and disarming with others, for responding with courage. And so this is where we're going to turn our attention and this will be for the remainder of our time together. How do we disarm with others? Maybe a story just to start us that one man was feeling distance from his team and he wanted a warmer relationship. There was some judging and so on going back and forth. So he was looking

for ways to connect. And they had just started texting. It was initiated by his son. And he was surprised to realize that when they were texting, he actually felt closer, especially because his son so frequently wrote LOL, which he thought meant lots of love. So this is a while back that story, but here we are. So anyway, he felt like it was this really quick, non-threatening way to express love. And so he started doing it more. His sister was getting a divorce and he wrote, we're all behind you and beside you. L-O-L, your brother. His friend lost a job and he said, I trust you'll find another. L-O-L. His father, Phil L. I hope you get over this really quickly. L-O-L. There was a colleague worried about his son's struggle with alcohol. I'm here. Let me know

how I can offer support, L-O-L. Well, okay, you got the idea. One point he wrote a text to his son. He was saying how disappointed he was that he couldn't do a weekend trip together, but he had to work because money was tight, L-O-L. And his son said, Dad, do you know what L-O-L means? And that was, of course, that reckoning. So let's look at the pathways of cultivating LOL, lots of love with others, that's grounded in a full, honest, embodied presence. And we're going to focus on the situations where we've created bad others. Or in some way, there's blame, a sense of demeaning someone, feeling angry, aversive, all the way to dehumanizing, aggressing, and how do we disarm? And first to name that we are all subject to this.

We all are breathing in the atmosphere of the society and we're all conditioned, especially when we're stressed, to accentuate the spacesuit coverings of us, them. It becomes really intense when there's fears for ourselves and others. But here's the thing, even when we're not high stress, we're in a very hierarchical society. We have been conditioned more than we even can begin to imagine to perceive people as better, worse, superior, inferior, good, bad, right, wrong, that others feel less than human. Okay, so, A story I'm going to kind of go personal now because I feel like in my own life, disarming my heart, seeing where I do this and opening has been powerful, humbling, important to everything

about waking up. There's a story I've shared with some of you, if you've listened to some of the Dharma talks about, this is a bunch of years in it back now, maybe five years ago walking on the river with my dog and hearing the sound of shots and it was hunters upstream. And I burst out crying because I spend a lot of time at the river and I'm watching the geese and the ducks. And I had this thought, these are my friends, you know, we're friends. With that, there's this real deep tenderness and sadness. And then I started doing this meditation that whatever life form I'd see, I'd say, we're friends. So I saw a cardinal, we're friends. So I saw a cardinal, we're friends. Cardinal wasn't an it, it was a subjective being. Squirrel, we're friends,

tree, passing person, dog, went to farm animals, you know, we're friends. And the more reflected and included we are friends, this living world, there's this vast sense of belonging. And I could tell if I could just remember this, I'd never be alone. Very powerful. Okay, so to this last year, I realized that I was not including recreational hunters. I say that with embarrassment because, you know, this is, you know, I pay a lot of attention. I try to, to ways that I am leaving people out. You know, I just looked up recently, 6% of the population. And I know recreational hunters close in, several who hunt, including in my husband's family. And so it was really humbling to see this, that, you know, I had kind of in some way armed my heart and diminished others. It was just an unprocessed aversion.

And here's what's important. I couldn't well or mandate myself to feel open-hearted. First I had to tend to the aversion and the anger that was hardening my heart. And I share this because I started today with that question of how to deal with anger, whether it's towards an individual or a group. And the first step is to honor its intelligence, that like every other emotion, anger has a purpose and an intelligence. It can get way off, it can cause suffering. But the basic purpose of anger is that there's an obstacle or a threat to something we care about. So it's possible to open to the energy of anger without feeding the stories of badness. So that's what I was doing. I was feeling

the fullness of that energy and sensing underneath it the vulnerability that was there and the vulnerability was this huge fear and sorrow for how we humans are cruel to non-human animals. And so I let myself open to that and right suffused in that fear and sorrow was a real caring about life. Once I was in touch with caring, this bigger space, I was more able to be. to reflect on my husband's brother with the eyes of the heart. You know, I could see his ego and his societal conditioning and coming from a hunting family and so on,

and I could see past the conditioned space suit more to who was looking through. I could remember his dimensionality, how playfully is and how amazingly tender with his girls and helpful with us and a sense of humor. the kind of insights that came through his emails, you know, his way of caring about life. And I'll share with you that the last time he visited, something was different. You know, I was more curious.

Like I had that inquiry of like, who are you? And he shared personally in a way he had never shared. And, you know, I was less defended, less armed. Feeling his goodness, it probably created more of a welcoming space. But for me it felt like grace, a sense of freedom. And I want to say that wasn't hugely difficult. It's harder in these current times, especially to disarm against those who have different political views than are in power.

I want to name that. That my heart, I would say every single day, I find that tightness and contraction, you know, taking in the news. and I have deepened my dedication to disarming. I feel like if awakening matters, this is the thing to do. You know, so just as with aversion towards those who are hunting, I have to pause and process and feel under the aversion and anger to the fear for those who are endangered right now in this world.

who are being harmed, am I caring for life? So again, if you're feeling angry, if you're feeling distressed, there's something you're caring about. And we have to return to that if we want to be part of the healing. Ruth King says it's so well, anger is initiatory. It's not transformational.

It's initiatory, it's needed. We need that energy. And we need to be grounded in our caring for that energy. to serve. Okay, a key Dharma remembrance in disarming that is so powerful and important is that it's not the hunters or those in power that I'm aversive to. It's the conditioned behaviors. It's to behave the spacesuits that arise from fear, delusion, that bring forward the aversion. And Ticknardhan says, at the best. These humans are not the enemy. It's the forces of fear and delusion that have people believe what they do and behave in hurtful ways. Okay, so I want to pause here and revisit

something that I started in on earlier. That many wonder, okay, but what if I'm reacting to a behavior, a space suit behavior that's hurt for? Like, how will disarming lead to change? What if the hunter is shooting up other humans indiscriminately? What if those who are othering, bad othering, or threatening to destroy us or those we love or this earth? So, as I mentioned, there are two dimensions to love. It's a yin-yang. There's that receptive dimension of inclusive and tender and there's the engaged empowered dimension where we're clear and protective for the well-being of all. And where Roshi Joan Lufix puts it, we need to have both a strong back and a soft front, a strong back and a soft front. We need to be clear and

to speak out our truths to protect those who are vulnerable. We need to act now more than ever. And we have to keep our heart caring open now more than ever because our enemy is not the human. So to me this is the Dharma version of rubber hits the road. It's acting with a soft front and a strong back. Anger's initiatory, we need it. And when it's purified, meaning it's not entangled in bad othering, it energizes our caring. It's a force that moves us to act for justice, for the well-being of others.

It's what develops a strong back. So I want to pause here again because there's a reflection that I think is really helpful on these two qualities of love. Just want to invite you into and I'm, these are doing these briefly. Just with an eye to time, I invite you to check it out more. on your own if it seems to resonate. But you might pause for a moment and consider whatever it is that really triggers your anger right now in the world, what you're angry about or distressed about. And you may have like a very long list we all do, but something that really gets to you.

it may be the threats, the current threats in this country to unravel the green initiatives, you know, more broadly that humans' actions that keep threatening more and more of this living planet. Or maybe for you, some of us have friends that are immediately in danger, the plight of immigrants. It might be the genocide of Palestinians. the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, what's going on in Syria, Ukraine, the plight of non-human animals. It might be just this slide into tyranny, autocracy, oligarchy, in this country and that's happening in so many places.

But just sense, what is it that brings up your anger, your distress, let it be there, allow it to be there. And you might sense, okay, so what is love asking? How can I respond? How can I relate with a strong back and a soft front? And with that question, you might sense what it means to have a soft front that under the anger, what is it you're caring about? What are you caring about? What's the suffering you want to relieve? The vulnerability, the vulnerable humans, our animal, human animals, non-human animals. What are you caring about? Feel your heart caring. And also sense that strong back, which is that honest, clear courage to respond in some way. The strong back wants to protect. It sees without delusion, the realness of threats. It's committed.

out of care for the benefit of all. Sense in your body the soft front and the strong back, courage to act and not pushing anyone, any group out of your heart. You're keeping this in mind, your eye are closed, you might open your eyes. I want to share a recent beautiful example of strong back, soft front that many of you are aware of, but just kind of hold it together because it's, really touches. And by the way, this example applies to any country on the slide to tyranny. There's a book I read a bit ago, 20 Lessons of Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.

And it feels like a super important book for these times. 20 lessons on tyranny. It's deep. It's powerful. One of his lessons is the moment you set an example, the spill of the status quo is broken and others will follow. Well, this is what Marianne, Buddy, Episcopalian Bishop did when she made a plea at the end of sermon to President Trump for mercy and compassion towards scared people, including immigrants, LGBTQ, trans people, and others. She's now receiving death threats. But she didn't stay in the trance of going along with things. She asked for mercy and compassion. It was the voice we needed. And it brings up both sorrow and hope to know that that's the invitation here, strong back and soft front. I looked up her book titles.

They include How We Learn to Be Brave. And another of her titles includes The Way of Love. so this was courageous love and it can inspire more of the same in others at a time in our history when this is what will save us I think you understand yeah

so we each have the capacity in our own ways to act from courageous love and it's hard and we'll be imperfect I mean every day I go into blaming and bad othering. You know, also I go into, oh, this is so big, I'm powerless. So I'm inviting you not to judge when this conditioning kicks in, to judge or blame or separate or resign or whatever it is.

If you blame yourself, that just further arms and numbs the heart, right? So start there. Kind presence. And that'll allow you to take the next step towards love, towards bravery. So I think of our training grounds here for Courageous Loving in a daily way is with our inner life and it's with those right here in our close-in circles. Because if we're going around with resentment with a closed heart towards our partner or friends or family members or colleagues, you know, the habit of making them wrong resentment,

it's not going to be so easy to disarm and engage lovingly, authentically. in wider circles. Does that make sense? Yeah, so that's the training grounds. I mean, if rubber hits road, we've got to do it with the people right here. And most of us can lock into aversion and bad othering with those close in. So if you have an example of that, I'm going to ask you to actually think of an example of that.

We're going to do a little practice with disarming towards someone we know close in where there's distance, where there's blame, where there's judgment. If you have a conflict with somebody like this, don't waste that suffering. It's a training ground. It's an opportunity to deepen. So this will be our final practice in a few moments and as I'm just to speak a little bit more but you might consider who you'd like to practice with in your life who you care about and you'd like to be more disarmed, not a place where there's trauma that won't serve

for a short practice. But some person where you're stuck in the relationship and there's a there's kind of anger and blame that is covering over, getting in the way of a flow of care. So we're going to do that but I just want to say more broadly, most everyone I've met has early wounding or societal wounding, usually both, of being rejected. hurt, criticized, abuse, not seen, not tended to, underprivileged, overprivileged, suffocated, and more. That's my little list right now. But it leads, that wounding leads to getting triggered in relationships, inevitably, to feeling

endangered into bad othering. So, wounding is a main way that our space suit selves get shaped and all relationships include some dance of the space suit selves. not just in pure communion with each other. So when we feel distanced, angry, blaming, closed, the first step is not to try to jump to meta. You know, may you be happy, may you be happy, may you be happy or forgiveness. It's really to turn back and tend to our own vulnerability.

Because here's the thing, if we skip over that, we can stay armed for days. for months, actually for decades, because it's a deep space suit patterning to avoid the vulnerability, to avoid true disarming. So I'm going to name a few very common patterns that perpetuate divides in our close-in relationships. And you might bring to mind the person where you feel some distance or conflict and to see if any of these match to what you might be experiencing. one way that we avoid vulnerability is to keep on amping up our stories of being right and the other being wrong. Blame.

Another is to act out, you know, expressing our judgment, anger, and aversion. Another is to blame ourselves. Another is to invalidate or ignore our own feelings. Okay, so you're hurt, grow up, you know, bootstrap. another's premature compassion or forgiveness. Hey, they're hurting, they're doing their best but not really facing it. So if any of those resonate, just good to know it. Because the beginning of choosing love is honoring the anger.

Okay, there's a messenger here. Let's see what's going on. Even if it's from the long, distant past, it's still something that wants attention, right? and then honest presence with the vulnerability underneath. You know, if we skip that, there's no movement towards disarming, towards healing. So I shared my own story of reactivity towards those who hunt recreationally. My first inclination was righteousness. Then I was blaming myself for my bias and bigotry.

And it was only when I brought just a kind attention, okay, what's the vulnerability under here? that I reconnected with the care that's there, that I could actually bring a more open-hearted presence to the human being beyond the space suit. We know that what we practice gets stronger, and I don't know a more important practice for each of us to play the edge of that vulnerability and disarm, and often it's over and over, especially with the people close in.

And that each time we do, there's some more, deeper part of us that trusts who we are and who they are. And we actually respond in more and more intelligent ways. Okay, so we'll practice together and maybe just to invite you for a moment, if you will, to begin by standing. And if you can't stand for whatever reason physically, it's fine to do this little bit of mindful movement sitting. But if you can stand, You might want to stand and if you feel self-conscious at all, it's okay to, you know, turn off video but we're just going to move just for a few moments. So stand and just come into stillness, maybe your feet shoulder width apart.

And if you're sitting, it's fine. Again, just feel your feet, relax your feet, let them widen, feel the pressure and warmth and temperature of the feet connecting to the ground, to the floor, to the earth. Feel that in your body. Now you might soften the backs of your knees. And again, you can do this sitting or standing. Just soften. You'll find they kind of tighten when you first stand, so soften them.

And then place one hand on your lower belly and the other in your sacrum. And soften your belly, like a two-year-old, undefended belly. When we're defended and armed, we regularly do it in the belly. And we repeatedly contract. So it helps to soften over and over in the bellies where we digest life experience. So one hand in the belly, one hand behind you on the lower, on the sacrum, yeah. Breathing, feeling the breath deep in the torso and bite the tailbone to relax toward the ground. You may only feel a small movement. Then allow the palms to float in space back

towards the sides. Can you relax the back of your neck and the occipital ridge at the base of the skull? Just a mental suggestion of lengthening. You may notice the chin goes parallel to the floor. Palms are floating in space. Now begin to inhale and raise the arms up, inhaling like an eagle movement. stretching up and then rotate the palms facing out, exhale down. The arms and wrists may swing a bit, crisscross in front of the body, then again swing up, inhale. Exhale, rotating the palms out, swinging down, and continue this movement at your own pace, breathing in and breathing up. Exhale, breathing down. Just feel yourself inhabiting your body. Breathing, moving. You may find you start out for a little

quicker and then you slow it down a little nice full strong breath. Well, that's time now swinging up. Inhale again. Keep the arms up now. Keep them up, keep them up, keeping them up. But let the breath relax, relax, exhaling, relaxing the breath. And now close your eyes and very slowly let the arms lower so slowly that you can feel the sensations of moving through air that if someone was watching.

they'd barely perceive the movement, micro-movements as the hands float through space, continuing in stillness, feeling the aliveness of the body, of this breathing body, feeling yourself right here, and continuing with a mindful presence, perhaps moving a bit slowly. Please come back if you're standing up into sitting position for the meditation. So you've identified someone you care about and where you're experiencing some separation might bring them to mind. And if you can bring to mind a particular incident that most epitomizes how come you feel the reaction you feel.

If there's some visuals, you might remember the visuals of how that person looked. The words exchange, the tone. what really triggered you. And as you sense what triggered you, make what we call the U-turn, let the attention come inwards you can feel inside you. Whatever feelings are the strongest. Anger, blame, judgment,

completely letting them be. If you're familiar with rain, this is to recognize what's going on and allow it. You say, this belongs. You're honoring it. not trying to change anything. And you might even sense, what are you believing when you're feeling this

about yourself or the other person? Is it that they couldn't respect you or care about you? That you don't matter in some way? Is it a sense of being demeaned? What's the worst part? What's most disturbing or hurtful? Maybe there's something you're hoping for or wanting that didn't happen. Most important, where do you feel the feelings in your body?

When you feel it in the chest, the throat. See if you can let your facial expression express the feelings. It'll help you get in touch with them. Maybe your body posture. To really get in touch with what you're feeling. See if you can go right to where you feel most vulnerable. What's under the anger or the reactivity? maybe it's this unmet need, maybe you feel rejected and there's a need to feel accepted as you are,

cared about, valued, important, understood, safe, appreciated, sense of vulnerability, what's missing, what's going on? And as you do, it can help to put your hand on your heart because it actually helps you stay connected in an embodied way with your own being. And you might take a moment to offer some compassion inwardly to nurture whatever you most need to hear or feel or remember to help you feel cared for. You can offer this message from your own awake heart. Or it may be through some other person, imagine some trusted person giving you a message. You know, trust your goodness. It's okay.

I'm here and I'm not leaving. And just hand on heart, let in the care. If your hand's not on your heart, just imagine care flowing in. And since your heart able to, if it's felt contracted, just soften a bit, open a bit as you tend inwardly so that you can begin to look at the the other with more clear eyes and just take a moment to sense what the other person's reactions or emotions might have been. Just let them be as they are.

With interest, what do you imagine they were really feeling? What were they hoping for? What unmet needs might they have had to maybe feel accepted as they are or respected or love or safe. Imagine that person feeling their needs met. Feeling cared for, respected,

like they matter, safe. How might they behave differently? Be different. In other words, can you sense their basic goodness when they're not caught in fear or hurt, or deficiency, when their hearts are disarmed? And you might sense who you are

together when your hearts are disarmed and free of blame. Just sense the heart space that includes both of you, the true belonging. And let this guide you as you ask, well, what's my deepest intention here moving forward? I might imagine ways you might respond in the next encounter with more choices, with a strong back, taking care of the well-being of both of you and a soft front, and a soft front, undefended. And finally, sense what you most want to remember. what feels most important to remember as you move forward on this pathway of courageous loving. It helps you to write things down, please do.

This is a time that we will have at least a couple of questions. And Trisha Stottler is going to be asking them and inviting you to unmute. Thank you. So just going through lots of great questions. I wanted to see if Faustine would like to come on and had some really great questions about emotions. Yes. And recognizing emotions. So thank you.

Thank you. The dreaded moment, I didn't think I'd ever do this. I've been running from this moment. So it's courageous. Say what's on your. mind. Yeah. Well, I just really liked the way you said that honor the intelligence of every, and I didn't quite get it. Did you say every emotion, every feeling, every energy? And you were talking about anger and how, you know, the anger that you felt about the hunter, you know, hunting.

And that instead of rejecting or blocking that feeling, you actually allowed it to speak to you. And so I was wondering if you could elaborate on that technique because it seems like a good technique. So just to question to you, what makes you ask that? Is there something similar that you're working with? Well, I had an other question as well about, you know, how do you recognize unprocessed feelings or unprocessed grief or unprocessed whatever? Because, I mean, that's a term that's relatively new for me to talk about an unprocessed feeling and how. it gets in the way of a lot of other things. And so I feel like the two are connected. Those two questions are connected. And I feel like I am dealing with a certain amount of, I would say,

you know, maybe a huge amount of unprocessed stuff from, you know, family abortion, etc. I've been processing a little bit, but it feels like I can be processing a little bit more effectively by perhaps using the technique that you're mentioning. Yeah, for sure. And what is the main emotion that does come up that you're most aware of, you know, when you sense, oh, there's more underneath. What are usually, what, is it anger or is it anxiety? What comes up? Oh, me, you mean that?

Yeah, yeah. I would say definitely anger, definitely anger. But also, I would say there's probably some hopelessness or some despair probably as well. And I think there's that as well, yeah. And is the anger targeted at a particular person or group of people? I would say not necessarily, no, not definitely a group, my family, a person, some one person in my family and it sometimes rotates, sometimes it doesn't, basically that's it. And then the world generally, you know, everyone, you know, everybody gets it.

Well, so the reason I was asking you. and thank you for naming that. And usually it targets somebody in our family system is real common, is that if you let yourself pay attention to that and feel angry at them, and then just ask yourself, well, where does it hurt underneath that anger? What is it that's really upsetting? What's really bothering me? What do you get?

What do you become aware of? I'm feeling misunderstood and the list is long. Of course, but just that, just what you named, and thank you for that. That to not feel seen, to not feel understood is a part of not feeling cared about and loved. So it's a deep hurt. And so the beginning of this process, because I can sense your sincerity. and asking about this is not to stay hooked on the story of anger like you did this and you shouldn't have done that and that's bad but say okay where does it hurt and I put my hand

in my heart you don't have to do that but just sense okay there's a place in me it's probably a young place that for as long as you can remember maybe just has not really feel seen and so if all you do for now is say oh okay, I get that, I'm sorry, I can sense that hurts. Like just a little bit of kindness. Are you with me? Yeah. Yeah.

If you do that right now, just take a moment. We could all do it for a moment. Just send that care to that place that's hurting. And just say, I get it. I'm sorry. I'm here. I'm listening. May you feel seen, may you feel understood.

even just a little bit and you'll feel a little more with yourself and that's that's the beginning of disarming. It's just a sense okay there's hurt in here and that we have this capacity to be with that hurt and it's courageous to do that. It reminds me of the expression that we use in 12-step programs you know hurt people hurt others so that you're saying reminds me of that and that often the hurt that I experience or that I'm like is there like big

you know load of it becomes you know the the fuel for putting that out in the world and trying to reverse that process so that I'm not you know projecting onto others

it's their fault that I'm hurt you know but just being able to be with my own pain, you know, from really from years and years and years ago, really. So it takes time. Thank you. It does. It takes, it's a life process, but I want to just highlight something you said because it's so wise. Hurt people hurt others and whether we're looking at an individual or a group of hurt people, when there's trauma, when people are traumatized.

sometimes call it, you know, the leg, the dog with the leg in a trap, then there's going to be aggression. There's going to be aggression. And so if we can see that, if you can see that, oh, when you act out in those ways that aren't very good, it's because you're hurting. It helps you forgive yourself, but it also helps heal the hurting. And if we can look at, you know, those that we might most revile in the public realm, we'll see trauma behind their aggression and cruelty. It's there. Yeah. Thank you. So were there any other questions or is that kind of what you want to know?

I'm good. Good. Thank you. Well, thank you. I feel like you brought a lot to this. Yeah. I think we have time for one more. Yeah. Let's call on Lauren who has a question about, oh, hi, Lauren. You want to ask your question? instead of me asking your question. Sure, I think I can remember it. Hi, Tara. Wonderful to see you again. You too, dear.

Yeah. So my question is about that line between trying to catch myself when I'm bad othering, but fine-tuning whether the intelligence of the anger and aversion is like, I need space, I need to set a boundary. And certainly I think of this most with people that are close to me, but it absolutely applies to what we're talking about this weekend in terms of groups of people that are trying to cause harm in our world. Yeah.

First of all, your question is like one of the most crucial questions if we really want to embody this, is that, okay, this is going on, the bad other is going on, but really what is needed to take care? What really is needed? Like really needed. And what I find both when it's in a personal relationship are collective is that I first have to go through the process of getting in touch with the reactivity in me. It's like I don't have the clarity to discern what you're asking until I have first unpacked what's going on inside me. Yeah, I often find like when I'm caught in that anger, just like Ruth King says, like, I'm angry and it takes a lot of processing and

sitting with it to figure out like what's it trying to tell me because I'm just angry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. Now here's the challenge with this one, is that you might feel unsafe and hurt and angry and you need time to process it, but the challenge is you also need to make some requests and protect yourself in that period of time. So it's not always so simple that we can go, oh, I'm vulnerable, I'm hurting, okay, I'm going to go be with myself, because sometimes it's like you plant that young tree and you need to put the fence around it even before you have chance to really get in touch with the vulnerability. So that's experiment. That's experiment. We go ahead and take care and set our boundaries and we might find, oops, I over did it

and created more rigidity than I needed. Or we don't set our boundaries and we'd say, wow, I just got slammed. We have to experiment. But you're just having the question there, the best thing we can do is keep in touch with our deep intention. My deep intention is to be awake, to live from love, to choose love, live from love. and just keep saying, what is love asking? What does love want? And then you'll do the experiment and find your way and we kind of live our way into it. So I hope that's helpful some.

Yes, the permission to make mistakes with either being too rigid or not having a strong enough back. That's really helpful. Yeah, we have to fumble and learn from it. So, well, thank you, dear. Nice to see you. You too. Yeah. Okay, my friends, I want to get you all on gallery view so I can see you. Here we are.

So the last couple of minutes, we're going to go over by two minutes. Just a brief closing. And maybe we'll start inward, just reconnect. Just take a moment, if you will, to tune in and just sense whatever is true. right in this moment for you. If there's a sense of vulnerability, of something difficult, add to that presence, kindness, and then open your heart and mind to the world to all that's going on, to sense all the different ways of reacting and underneath them the caring, that you care about this world, you care about this life, that you want to be part of the healing.

and it helps to remember that you're not alone. There's so many who deeply care. So in that spirit, take a moment right now to sense that through history, through the past, there's always been beings who care about each other, who have the courage, the strong back, the soft front, to live from love. there's been beings who care all over the world and that right now around the globe

there are beings that are distressed and fearful and angry and hurting and who care and who are trying to find the courage as we all are to be part of the healing young and old people people from all races, religions, people who care

And then in the future, it'll be the same. It's part of who we are. It's part of the love and awareness that's our essence to care. There will be beings, the great-great-grandchildren of people who think their enemies will care. So to feel past, present, future, all those times coming together to this vast space of caring, of heart space that we belong to, just to feel that. and you might sense right here, right here, and those that have joined how that spirit, that love, that caring is shining through.

And just open your eyes for a moment. You want to scroll through? I love this part because nobody knows that you're looking at them. But you can go ahead and look and just know that all of us who are here, here because we care. And just see the light and spirit and goodness of that caring. Just pause with one person and then another. And just honor that and sense how it connects us. It's beautiful.

It's what gives us that capacity to draw on soul force and make a different world. Enjoy looking at each other. And then just to open it up, open it up and sense it's the field that we're all part of this field. field, the basic goodness that's here, and to maybe feel a shared prayer as we close, is that all beings trust the love that is their essence. That all beings touch a great and natural peace, may there be a growing peace and compassion and justice and awakening in our world. May we all awaken and be free.

Thank you, dear ones. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your caring hearts.