Tara Brach - Part 1: Awakening through Anger - The U-Turn to Freedom

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

Part 1: Awakening through Anger – The U-Turn to Freedom - Anger is naturally triggered when we feel an obstacle to meeting our needs. How do we honor the intelligence within anger, but not get hijacked into emotional reactivity that creates suffering in our individual and collective lives? This talk explores the U-turn that enables us to offer a healing attention to the feelings and unmet needs under anger. Once present with our inner life, we are able to respond to those around us with wisdom, empathy and true strength. (a favorite from the archives - contains the Prickly Porcupine story)

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. I'd like to start this talk with one of my favorite little stories and it's called The Parable of the Prickly Porcupine. It was the coldest winter ever, so cold that many animals froze to death and in an effort to save themselves from this icy fate, the porcupines decided to gather together to fend off the chill. They huddled close to each other,

covered and protected from the elements and warmed by their collective body heat. But their prickly quills proved to be a bit of a problem in close proximity. They poked and stabbed each other, wounding their closest companions. The warmth was comfortable, but the mutual needling became increasingly unconstitutional.

comfortable. Eventually they began to distance themselves one from the other, scattering in the forest, only to end up alone and frozen. Many died. It soon became clear that they would have to choose between solitary deaths in the frigid wilderness and the discomfort of being needleed by their companion's quills when they banded together. Wisely, they decided to return to the huddle. They learned to live with little wounds caused by the close relationship with their fellows in order to benefit from the collective heat they generated as a group. In this way, they were able to survive. Possible morals of the story. One, we all hurt each other from time to time. It's an inevitable part of being in relationship and community, but in the end we're better off

together than we might be a part. Two, learning to accept each other's imperfections can be a successful survival strategy. So for even the the best of relationships, they're not conflict-free. It's inevitable that we hurt each other, that we misunderstand each other, that we pull back at times, that we get attached, that we react. And the given is that we have different sets of needs often and sometimes they collide and we end up reacting out of our historic wounds. So conflict is a given.

It's just part of the deal. and our deepest healing and freedom is in learning how to respond to the prickliness and the wounding, how to respond and let whatever arises be the grist. Let it be the grist that in some way helps us learn how to deepen connection and warmth and understanding, not to make it wrong. Our flinch response to conflict and anger

or is it something bad's happening? And I'm hoping that as we reflect together, that we can just sense the possibility of, hey, this is just the given, and it's a portal to a very profound awakening when we're willing to pay attention. I was reflecting on, as I was writing this, on an early training experience,

I was in a psychodrama group, and had a wonderful trainer, Anne Hale. And she was a real model for how to be very, very real and very, very connected and caring with people and not pulling away from conflict. And I remember she and I hit an edge at one point and when we sat down to talk it out, she said to me,

hey, conflict, it's really okay. I'm just committed to hanging in. And I know if I commit to hanging in, it'll serve us. I know it'll be okay. And there was something in her knowing that I realized in that experience that there's just nothing wrong with the fact of conflict and that we actually have the capacity to hang in, which is what I really want to talk about.

So as a species, our success, if you want to call it the success of humans, There's some questionable things about our success, but our success, what's our adaptiveness that's really made a difference is in the area of being able to collaborate and cooperate and work out the fact of the prickliness. That's what's given our strengths. And as we know, we continue to be reactive in ways that are incredibly destructive

to ourselves and others, where we get triggered and in that being triggered, threatened to not only destroy other humans in our own species, but really to destroy the earth. So the big inquiry for us as a species, and we're going to look at it more on an individual level, is how do we navigate anger and conflict when it arises? And the question is, when we get triggered, do we go into the more primitive response of fight-flight-fries?

are instead, do we have, you know, we get that poke from that prickly quill, do we have the capacity to pause and call on mindfulness and try to wake up empathy and compassion so we can really respond from our best selves? And as I pose that, it's a mix for most of us. You know, most of us get humbled regularly by how much we react. and we also know that we have a longing to pause and to come from a place that actually brings us less suffering

and the world less suffering. So it's a mix. So, as I said, in this talk, the given is the prickliness and the invitation is to see if we can truly decondition that thing in us that makes it bad or wrong because as soon as we've made our anger wrong, we actually are more identified with it. Just, okay, this is the weather system, this is the human conditioning.

Can we recognize as that and begin to shift from what's sometimes called fight-flight-freeze to attend and befriend? Attend and befriend is really the expression of our more evolved brain and our more evolved consciousness. So I'll name three key principles right up front. and that I'm kind of structuring this around. And the first one is that anger, including the closing of the heart, the setting up of armoring, is natural, necessary, and intelligent.

And I wanted to start with this because, you know, its function is to let us know where we've encountered an obstacle to our needs, whether it's the need for safety or respect or love. So that's the first principle, natural, necessary, and intelligent. The second principle will be that if we get hijacked by anger, in other words, when it takes over, it's suffering. When it takes over, not only do we not address our unmet needs,

but we end up perpetuating the violence and getting caught in a very narrow prison of a separate threatened self. So that's the second principle. And the third one is, as we learn to pause and deepen our presence, we actually, when we interrupt the old patterns of reactivity, discover a much more expanded, fast, deep, tender space of being that informs us and guides us. Okay? So let's begin with the first one.

And the first one is that anger's natural and nestlings. and intelligent. And I start with it because it's a huge misunderstanding in spiritual circles that in some way anger is bad. And it's in most spiritual and religious traditions in some way.

That's the interpretation. I mean, there are many alternatives, but that's in there so we can easily get hooked on it. So, again, and I like the way the Tibetans describe it, that within every emotion is intelligent and within every emotion there's a virtue, there's something really positive that if we can meet it with presence, it ends up unfolding in its healing way. And the gift within anger is discriminating wisdom if we don't get hijacked.

But the gift is discriminating wisdom and without anger we wouldn't know when we've encountered obstacles to our unfolding, we wouldn't have the juice to move forward. So anger gives us a certain energy. Years ago I worked with a young woman who had a very abusive father. She was in her 20s, but still very involved and caught up with her parents. And she kept getting re-traumatized by his anger. And as we started working, she mentally could acknowledge that she was being harmed, but she felt very bad, guilty, unsafe, letting herself feel anger.

So that's what we worked with and gradually there was a allowing of it in her body, very visceral allowing that kind of rage that had been there, the rage at being harmed to be felt. And when she could open to that rage, she was able to then make some decisions about setting some boundaries and creating some distance that she really needed to do. So opening to its raw anger, she could, raw energy, she could make those boundaries. Now, while it's sticky, the whole energy of anger sticking will discuss this, it tells

us to pay attention, tells us to act. And I really can see this in social activism. anger is so much a part of what wakes us up to injustice to the harming of ourselves and others in the earth and it's in the name of spirituality I've often seen that that intelligence gets pushed down so there's kind of this message and I've seen it in the Buddhist community that anger is unwholesome and what it does is it it makes it very confusing for those that have been oppressed, abused, mistreated. You know, I've seen in the Buddhist communities and it's been a lot more

expression of this in the last year or two how the pain of feeling anger, and I found this in Sanghas that have worked with diversity issues, inclusivity and equity issues, how the pain of being oppressed and excluded, the anger that came out of that wasn't okay. And so there was a sense of silencing that created more. more separation. And that creates more exclusion. I've heard that from, you know, when it comes to racism, when it comes to sexism, that's not okay to be angry when you feel oppressed.

If you're a spiritual person, you'll have worked that out. Whereas in fact, what I've seen is that it's a necessary part of being energized enough to be able to say, hey, something needs to be able to say, hey, something needs to be. attention. Okay, so principle one, natural, intelligent, necessary. Principle two is, yes, and don't get hijacked. Don't get identified with repeating blame stories that are generated from this limbic messenger system. And the woman I told you about, this young woman that, you know, her rage helped her create boundaries with her dad. Well, what happened for her was she then did harden into stories of being a victim

and in her next few relationships that Plame got, and projection of bad father got placed mightily on the men she was with. So it was for several years that she was hijacked and that she had to, she was hijacked and that she had to then turn and face where the anger was coming from and open to the grieving place underneath it so that she could free herself from that chronic blaming and reactivity. So the deal is this, that when we'd get possessed by the anger, we get cut off from the parts of our brain and our consciousness that are most able to feel empathy and have perspective, and be mindful, we get cut off from our wisdom, our compassion.

So the key thing that I like to always come back to is that anger is a sign of unmet needs. We have huge conditioning to try to meet our needs, let's say for safety, by reacting right away with aggression. Very, very deep conditioning. And it's really important not to blame ourselves for that condition. because along with anger, anger never comes alone. It always comes along with the whole mess of feelings of shame for the anger, fear about what will happen if we act out of it, or it's just, it's always layered.

So to begin to recognize that when we're activated we have hundreds of thousands of years of conditioning when we feel our needs are violated to move right into a good. aggression. And it's also very contagious. It's really contagious. We can feel it in riots. You can feel how the sense of offense is just a biological contagion into aggressive violence. And you can sense it in a country revving up for war when small groups of people stoke fire in each other of anger. And we get addicted, by the way. The biological high from angers well-known. It's a temporary sense of power. I mean, it's a false refuge because it temporarily gives us a sense of power over. We're angry because we have an obstacle

that's in some way pushed us down and the biological emotional reaction is to push down other to kind of demolish, wipe out. There's a temporary feeling of regaining our power. That feels really good, doesn't last very long, we have to keep doing it and keep doing it, to keep revving it, so it becomes an addiction. Anger's very, very addictive. This is Rita Redner. She says, my grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands. Two of them were just napping. So we have different ways, each of us, of expressing aggression. So we might get really possessed and hijacked, but we have different ways. I mean, some people's ways, are more passive, the passive aggression, which is the indirect attempts to injure ways of withdrawing,

of cutting out in order to hurt. It's just a different way of control of things aggressively. And then there's the more direct ways that we use to diminish other people to intimidate with threats, to manipulate with deceits, to directly blame. We have all these different ways of out of our feeling of unmet need to try to control and manipulate. Here's a story I share pretty much once a year about an elderly man in Phoenix calling his son and saying, I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing.

Forty-five years of misery is enough. Pop, what are you talking about? The son screams. Father says, we can't stand the sight of each other any longer. We're sick and tired of each other, and I'm sick and tired of talking about this. So call your sister in Chicago and tell her he hangs up the phone. Franek, the son calls his sister who explodes on the phone. Like, heck, they're getting a divorce, she shouts, I'll take care of this.

She calls Phoenix, screams at the old man, you're not getting a divorce, don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back. We'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do anything. Do you hear me? She hangs up. The old man hangs up his phone, turns to his wife.

Okay, he says, they're coming for Thanksgiving. And they're paying their own way. Okay, so again, anger, aggression comes out of unmet needs. It's a way of trying to meet needs. And as we'll explore, when we use aggression to meet our needs, when we're operating off the limbic system in that way, it doesn't work. We don't really get our needs met.

You can see this in a societal way that, you know, when a country attacks another country, when we, I think of Iraq, you know, bomb them back to the Stone Age, what does it do? It does not then persuade others or conferred others in the goodness of our democracy, you know. It just seeds more violence. And then we know it in our personal life. When we're angry and we act out of it, we don't end up getting what we want. from the other person, do we?

It doesn't work. Another illustration, David received a parrot for his birthday, and the parrot was fully grown with a bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was an expletive. He was rude. David tried hard to change the bird's attitude, constantly saying polite words, playing soft music, anything.

Nothing worse. He yelled at the bird, the bird got worse. He shook the bird and the bird got madder and rudder. Finally, in a moment of rage, in desperation, David put the parrot into the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird squawking, kicking, and screaming, and then suddenly all was quiet. David was frightened he might have actually hurt the bird and quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto David's extended arm and said,

I'm awfully sorry that I've offended you with my language and actions. I ask your forgiveness and I will try to check my behavior in the future. David was astounded at the birds' change in attitude and was about to ask what changed and when the parrot continued, may I ask what the chicken did? So not only does our reactivity and our anger and aggression not meet our needs or only temporarily, perhaps, what it really does is it reconfirms and solidifies our sense of identity as a threatened, separate, egoic self. Deep down, it reaffirms a sense of that we're vulnerable

and have no way to take care of ourselves. It's interesting. It's something to give us power, but it actually keeps us locked into feeling powerless. Mark Twain says, anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. Okay, so again,

there's an intelligence and a necessity and when we get possessed it becomes that acid which actually is harmful to us let's do a brief reflection on this before I keep talking about it just get you to tap in a little and as you know with most of these reflection talks will be doing a couple of reflections actually

on where you get caught with anger you might take a few full breaths allow yourself to collect your attention, come into this pause. I'd like to invite you to bring to mind a situation where you might find that you get reactive, get angry, one that's familiar to you. And see if you can be witness right now without adding further judgment, just out of interest and curiosity, just to notice what's your style of aggression? I mean, is it a passive aggression that cuts off or withdraws or tries to control things more

indirectly? Is an aggression that wants to put down another? Are there other ways of trying to hurt the other when you're feeling aggressive? If you look closer at times when you've acted out in some way, with blame, with withdrawal, do you find you get your needs met? What's your sense of yourself? What's your identity like in the moments when you're caught in aggressive reactivity? Do you like yourself?

Continuing to meditate and listening to this very classic story. Some of you will remember a big tough samurai once went to see a little monk. Monk, he said in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, teach me about heaven and hell. The monk looked up with this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, teach you about heaven and hell. I couldn't teach you about anything. You're dirty, you smell, your blade is rusty. You're a disgrace.

An embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can't stand you. The samurai was furious. He shook, got all red in the face, was speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword and raised it above him preparing to slay the monk. That's hell, said the monk softly. The samurai was overwhelmed, the compassion and surrender of this little man who had offered

his life to give this teaching to show him hell. He slowly put down a sword filled with gratitude and suddenly peaceful. And that's heaven, said the monk softly. Each of you has the wisdom that knows you're more than the self that's contracted and angry and reactive. You know that. Hell is another way of saying, trapped in a living identity, not living from the truth of who you are. When you're suffering, it's just because you're believing a story and feeling emotions and identified in something smaller than the truth of your being, than your spirit, than your heart. So spiritual awakening or heaven is really

that experience that happens as we begin to recognize, oh, that angry reactivity, that's not me. And then we dedicate to responding to our life from a wise heart. So again, anger's intelligent, it's natural, we need to listen to it. Getting possessed and hijacked prevents us from meeting our needs, keeps us trapped in a limited self-sense. So the third again, the third principle, in case you forgot, is that when we respond to being triggered and pause, when we deepen presence, we begin to access again that wholeness of our being, that wise heart that can actually allow us to get our needs met and even more ripples out in a way that's healing to our world.

The name I like for this part three, which is really how do we respond instead of react, is the word U-turn, that we make a U-turn. And the U-turn is that when we're angry, we have fixated on the object of our anger, that trigger, and that's the bad person. That's something's wrong outside us, the bad other. So the U-turn is that we're shifting our attention. Instead of fixating on blaming bad other, we're doing the U-turn and coming back to looking and attending to and bringing presence to the place that feels bad inside, the wounded place.

We're making a U-turn with our attention. The understanding is that even though the other might appear as the trigger, the source of the painful emotion is. inside us. And most of you know that if it wasn't one person doing it this year, it would be somebody else next year, right? We know that? Okay. Now just to say, even when we clearly need to respond to harmful external conditions, to somebody behaving in a way that could create injury, even though we need to respond, the starting place is the U-turn, the starting place is bringing our attention to our inner experience.

This is the way we begin to make the shift from the limbic system, from a more primitive reaction to a more evolved consciousness. We U-turn, we come back to where the emotion's living. I reflect often in the social arena on Gandhi, who famously took a day off each week. And he said he did it so his research,

response to all that was going on in his world would be from really the highest part of his being. And so it is with us, whether it's a conflictual family or society, we need to connect inwardly to respond wisely. I know for myself it was about 10, 15 years ago, that it became really clear to me that every judgment, anything that was kind of a put-down, even the more mild kind of just little superior comments in my mind about others, they were all part of a kind of aggressive wiring that created separation. And in some way I was trying to make, inflate myself or feel better or whatever it is behind, there's a lot of different layers, but they created separation. So I made a

commitment that whenever I became alert to that, I would bring presence to write inside me what was going on underneath the judgment. And I called it bringing rain to blame because rain's that acronym that helps us access presence when we've been kind of caught and contracted. So I've practiced a lot trying to make this shift from fight-flight-flight-freeze, from being reactive. Even as I mentioned in judgments that weren't, didn't seem like vicious, but still in some way were put-downs to attend and befriend, starting with what was going on inside me. And of course, the best pace of practice for most of us are those that we see regularly. And in this case, for me it's with my partner with Jonathan.

So I have a lot of Jonathan's stories in terms of where I ran into something and how to get back. So I thought I'd share one back when we were young and foolish way, way long ago, probably about two years. So one of our areas of tension was it's actually changed in the last year and a half or so. But we agreed to do these morning meditations together twice a week where that would be our check-in time. We'd sit together and then really ask that question, is there anything right now between us and feeling love and presence? And so I was being, again, this is a little bit gender bias,

but being the female, I was a little more attached to making sure it happened and making sure we went deep in it and so on. And I remember that one of our mornings he told me he had a swimming coach coming and so we'd have to shorten our time together. And often before we'll have our sitting, we'll each do our whatever we're doing exercise-wise. I usually go for a walk on the river. And so I went for my walk

and started running through my mind all my resentments about how he picked this day to have his swimming coach come. It had to be our time, you know, that kind of thing. And it doesn't matter so much to him as it matters to me and putting them down for not prioritizing, you know, meditation or relational time. And I think you got the general gist of it. So I caught on, okay, I'm judging, and this is a time to bring rain to blame, which is to recognize and allow, R and A, the judging,

and then begin to, I, investigate with kindness, what's going on. And the feeling underneath the judging when I investigated was hurt was a feeling that kind of went back to my father and being a busy guy and feeling like he didn't really want to spend time with me or accompany me and be close and really didn't really understand. So it took me down to a tender place but then I very quickly it was almost like I'd touch it a little and zap back into the judgment again. It was much more easy and comfortable, really, to be in the judgment than in that place.

So I had a lot of rounds of kind of going into blaming him, and then having to go back down until I really had this prayer, you know, please remove the veils. May I touch the truth that's here? I really don't want to stay in that small-minded place. And at that point, I had a feel underneath the judging but also say, I forgive this judging, I forgive this anger. Because the anger had a real strength to it and it was almost like some part of me even when

I was praying was saying, this is bad, I shouldn't be judging so much, I shouldn't be angry. I had to decondition that and say this anger is forgiven and then I could get under to that hurt place, that grieving place really and touch the vulnerability that we're going to be. was there. And when I could do that, then it shifted. As soon as I could really come into where the grief was, there was compassion, there was tenderness, there was more space, and I was at the end of rain, which means I was no longer caught in the self that was judging or the self that felt victimized, but I was resting in a tender space of compassion and presence. So we got together that morning and meditated and we had a shorter check-in and so

but it was actually possible for me to name well I just felt I felt incredibly tender and afterwards but I felt really heard and I could name the layers of it and do it in a way that he didn't feel blamed and which made for him being able to say that he was feeling really tense and ready for me to pounce and that he really hadn't wanted it to work out this way and he was really glad for some extra time another day, you know, all that kind of thing. But there was a few things about this that I want to comment on that made me want to share the story and one was, I would have stayed locked in the judgment if I hadn't remembered that really,

real strong intention not to be there. So if you want to make the shift from the pattern of reactivity where there's judging and blaming, fight-flight freeze, it takes an advanced commitment because once you get hooked, it's very compelling sticky energy. So to remember, I will not get my needs met this way. I am not living from the truth of who I am. That intention helps us to drop in. The other comment is, if there's any added layer that you shouldn't be angry or you shouldn't be judging, it's really important to forgive the anger. And when I say forgive the anger, I don't mean this is bad, but I forgive it. I mean, this is a natural weather system and truly, truly, there's nothing wrong.

And we can listen to the wisdom message from it, but we don't want to be hooked. So forgive it for being there because that really softens things. And then the final thing to say is that once you start getting what's underneath the anger, the key, the alchemy to shifting, is self-compassion. Once you get to what's under the anger, the key, and I put my hands on my chest as a gesture, and that's a powerful gesture, is to offer some kindness, to the place that's hurting. Once we've been with ourselves,

once we've made the U-turn and been with ourselves with a fully compassionate presence, A, we're able to communicate to another person from a place that rather than blaming and people pick up the energy of blame. The reason we don't get our needs met is because when we're speaking from anger, another person's biological, natural condition,

conditioning is to create some armoring. To pause and do the U-turn first is the best way if we want to communicate then from a sense of authenticity and be heard the best way to arrive there. So we can express ourselves without eliciting defensiveness and when we've made the U-turn, we've reconnected to our, you might call it, to the frontal cortex and the part of us that's capable of empathy. In other words, we have access to our mirror neuron so when we communicate, we can see what's going on with the other person better too. When you're in your anger, all you can see is the mask of the other person. We can't see truly when we're in anger.

So there are a number of challenges in doing this and I'll name just a couple right away, which is that when we're caught in anger, it really, really seems like the other person's bad or wrong. So it takes a certain practice, and this is where meditation comes in, where we on some level deep down know this is the story, it's really compelling, it seems really true, but it's real but not true. In other words, it's a story, it's not truth. It's okay that it feels real, but we don't have to believe it.

And at least for the time being there's an agreement. meant to, okay, let's put aside the story and just be with the energy of the anger. Don't believe the story. Then the second challenge that comes up is somebody often says to me, okay, I get it. The story is not true, the person's not intrinsically bad, but they're harmful. So how do I keep my heart open if they keep wounding me? How do I navigate that danger? And first is there's no requirement we keep our heart open.

Our hearts close and open as they do. To make the U-turn is absolutely essential though, because we won't know how to wisely set boundaries and how to wisely communicate what we need to communicate if we aren't connected with ourselves first. Still make the U-turn. Okay, another challenge that comes up. I can process emotions and communicate, but my partner can't. Okay? Some of you have that thought.

So how do I communicate every time I express my feelings about our lack of intimacy, my partner pulls away and shuts down, even when I'm not coming from an angry place. So I want to also name that it's often uneven. It's often that some people have more capacity to make the U-turn and to tolerate and be with, presence with what's going on inside them than other people. people. And so you might have a close friend or a partner or a parent or a child that hasn't developed that capacity. Still, if you do it, you create a field where there's more understanding and compassion possible. It might not fit the package the way you want it to be, but more

is possible. Now when I say that to people, often what they'll say is, but that's not fair. I have to do all the work. I don't know if anyone had that thought, but I actually think of it differently, that if you're the one that's a little better able to make the U-turn than your friend, your partner, your parent, that's a blessing. Because then you're the one that gets to come home to more of the full sense of your heart and your being. You're not as stuck in that identity, that egoic identity.

So yeah, it's work and it means tolerating a lot of discomfort. I mean, every one of us knows what it's like to have somebody criticize us. And rather than saying back, that thing we wanted to say back, slowing down, I mean, it can be like really, really horribly unpleasant. We also know what it's like to be in the middle of an argument and all of a sudden realize we're wrong. but not be able to admit it. And we have a real hook on, you know, being right,

on getting back, and we want to hold on to the sense of control and power. If you have that deep intention to make that shift, to live from the more wise and awake part of your being, that's grace. And the invitation is to go ahead and keep deepening that capacity.

So we've explored three principles. That the anger is natural, that it's not only natural, it's necessary, that we get hijacked, but it's important to forgive that, and it's important to make the U-turn, and that if we do make the U-turn, it really allows for an evolution of our, whole sense of our being in a deep way.

I'd like to end by saying that, and I have another story I'd like to share before we close, that if you commit yourself, like, reign on blame, if you commit yourself, when you see the anger or the blame, whatever, to pause and be present, you'll find that each time you do it, there becomes a little bit more... of a sense of ease in it, you get a little, it's easier to tolerate the uncomfortableness of it and you get more and more familiar with that space, that heart space that feels that this is more home, the truth of who I am than any part of me that is needing to judge back or be aggressive.

And again, this is one that affected me so much. I try to share it each year if I have a chance. And it took place actually, the story took place in Washington, D.C., where we are here. And I was told by a man who worked with juvenile offenders here. And most of the youth that he worked with were kids and gangs that had committed homicide. Okay, so one 14-year-old boy in his program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. And at the trial, the victim's mother sat impassively silent until the end.

And after he was convicted of the killing, she stood up slowly and she stared at him. She said, I'm going to kill you. Then the youth was taken away for several years to the facility, juvenile facility. Well, after the first half year, the mother of the slainment, the child, the mother of the slain, child went to visit this boy. And he had been living on the streets before killing and she was the only visitor he'd had. So over time they talked and when she left she gave him some money for some getting some extra food and snacks and so on and then she started to visit him more regularly bringing, bringing food and bringing small gifts. And near the end of his three-year sentence,

she asked him what he was going to do when he got out and he was confused and uncertain. So she offered to set him up with a job at a friend's company. And then she inquired about where he'd live and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home. Eight months he lived there and he ate her food, worked at the job. Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk and she sat down opposite of him and she said, do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you? And he said, I sure do.

Well, I did, she went on. I didn't want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That's why I started to visit you and bring you things. That's why I got you the job and let you live in my house. That's how I said about changing you. And that old boy, he's gone. So now what I want to ask you since my son is gone and that killer is gone

if you'll stay here. I've got Rome and I'd like to adopt you if you'll let me. And she became the mother of her son's killer. This is the mother he had never had. So, true story. You know, I don't share that story because I feel like, oh, that's how I would respond. I don't have no idea. but I share it almost as a

as a sense of the vision of the what's possible in this human evolution as we begin to respond to our life from more and more of a place of seeing truth, of wisdom, of compassion, that she could see the potential goodness that she didn't disconnect, her wound and her pain or anger didn't disconnect her fully from that place in her that could see what was possible, that is grace.

And that is what's possible for us. So, I'd like to spend the last few minutes with a reflection and invite you to adjust how you're sitting, however serves you, and take a few full breaths. And again, bringing to mind as you did earlier a place where you find you've reacted in anger, you still do, where it feels familiar that you get caught. It's called hijacked by that very reactive place. And let yourself go right to a situation that reminds you you of what's so triggering as well as you can.

And I naturally am not encouraging you to go if there's some trauma, this is not the time to go to that, but something that triggered, anger, judgment, blame, that you'd like a little more freedom around. Noticing the anger that comes up and if it feels helpful to you to honor the energy by forgiving it. You can't begin to investigate if you don't, if you're in some part rejecting the energy of the anger, making yourself bad for it. So forgive it. So you can begin to sense the anger and just ask yourself, what are the feelings here that are underneath or going with the anger? Often there's more than one. It might be that you're hurt, or afraid, maybe shame,

just sense how the situation made you feel. Let yourself feel the feelings. Is it hurt? Do you feel under the anger that you feel disrespected, not seen? Hurt, not valued, unsafe? See if you can sense into what the unmet need is. What would you really be hoping for? What's the unmet need?

What were you wanting that didn't happen? Is it the need to feel loved, the need to feel safe, the need to feel respected, seen? What need is unfulfilled that's under there? And see if you might want to, this is a good point just to put your hand on your heart if you find that's helpful and just sense that you're bearing witness with kindness to that unmet need and even more just sense how you want to respond to that right in this moment. This is the U-turn where you're bringing a kind, honest, caring attention to the unmet need. As you sense presence, sense the compassion that's here and if it's hard to feel it for

yourself, you might sense others helping you to people that can. care about you, just holding the unmet need with kindness. And you might sense it as you feel energy, presence, kindness, holding that part of you, that you can begin to look at the situation and ask yourself, what's my deepest intention here? What's the quality of heart and awareness I want to bring to this? And you might imagine just for a moment the possibility, the choices, that are available to you in responding when you're coming from an awake and tender heart, an honest, connected place. Know that as you seek for more understanding and connection and love,

as you make that shift using the U-turn and living from that wise heart, that you not only bring more freedom to your own life, but that you join this current of awakening consciousness that can really help bring more love and peace to our world. So in that spirit I'd like to close with a poem that was written the day after 9-11 by, again, a local boy who was 13 years old from Washington, D.C., a poet who has has since died of muscular dystrophy. He writes, we need to stop, just stop, stop for a moment, before anybody says or does anything that may hurt anyone else. We need to be silent,

just silent. Silent for a moment before the future slips away into ashes and dust. Stop, be silent and notice in so many ways we are the same. And now let us pray differently yet together before there is no earth, no life, no chance for peace. Stop, be silent and notice in so many ways we are the same and now let us pray differently yet together. Amosthay and thank you for your attention. We hope you've enjoyed these teachings.

For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule and special online offerings, please join my email list by visiting tarabrock.com.