Tara Brach - Radical Acceptance – Gateway to Love, Wisdom and Peace

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Radical Acceptance – Gateway to Love, Wisdom and Peace - Acceptance is radical because it undoes our resistance to reality. This talk explores how our meditation practice can cultivate a liberating acceptance, a heartspace that includes all of life and enables us to respond to our world with deep intelligence and compassion. all life.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome friends. You know, I keep finding in my life that the deepest truths are the ones that we regularly forget. And one of these is radical acceptance, really of exactly what we're experiencing in the here and now is the gateway to everything we long for, for love, wisdom, peace, freedom, radical acceptance. And without being aware of it, in many moments, what's really happening is that we're at odds with reality. We're turned against ourselves or judging another or feeling

resentful or just feeling oppressed by life. and so one of the real big shifts for me over the decades, and this hasn't been sudden, is that while all those ways of resisting life come up, you know, judging myself, judging others, the lag time has decreased. I'm in that kind of resisting transfer shorter amounts of time, and then there's this recognition. Oh, okay, I'm fighting reality. And then there's a kind of relaxing open. And the two questions that really help me are,

so what is actually happening right now? And can I be with this with kindness? Radical acceptance. It becomes increasingly clear that the boundary to what we accept is the boundary to our freedom. So as many of you know, this was the center teaching in my first book,

radical acceptance. And the book is a training and really how to embrace our inner life and all of life, how to love ourselves into healing. I like that phrase. Next fall, the 20th anniversary edition of radical acceptance is coming out. I've been working on it. There's a new chapter and a new introduction and an introduction to rain. And as I've been working on this, I've reflected a lot on the themes and they just feel so alive and central that I wanted to bring them into one of these podcasted talks and so I chose one I like from last year on Radical Acceptance. Okay, friends, may this serve your heart, may it be of benefit. Love and blessings to each. Welcome, Namaste. It's a pleasure to be with you.

in our last class, last week, the theme was cultivating a loving heart. And this week, what I'd like to do is explore what I really consider to be the roots of love and wisdom, which is acceptance. And true acceptance is radical. I mean, it means no resistance to the present moment experience, no controlling, It's a full allowing of life to be as it is. It's what the poet Dorothy Hunt calls a heart space where everything that is is welcome. And I really love that.

The heart space where everything that is is welcome. So when we're having a hard time, you know, when we're fearful, when we're angry, we might not directly be able to open to compassion to relating with loving presence. But what is possible, and this is the first step, is to undo our resistance to what's going on. In other words, to allow to let what's going on just be. And that's why, and many of you are familiar with Rain, recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture, the practice that leads us to loving presence, to nurturing and loving presence, is recognizing and allowing. It's radical acceptance. So radical acceptance takes training. It takes

training to simply recognize and allow and let be what's here because it goes against our conditioning. I mean, when we're stressed, you know, when we encounter unpleasant experiences, let's say you make a mistake or you're late for something or there's a conflict with someone. There's really strong conditioning for our survival reflexes to take over, fight, flight, freeze, grasping. And it happens really quickly and it's often unconscious because the intent of the survival brain is just to protect you. It's to control things as quickly as it can. It's not to accept. So in those moments when we're in that survival brain hijack, we're in a trance, we're contracted, we're cut off from, you know, reason and empathy and compassion, really from our whole brain,

from our whole being. So the practice of radical acceptance is undoing that reflex to clench, to contract, to contract, to resist, and opening back into our full heart and awareness. A favorite story of mine, and this is an insurance claim that was put in by a bricklayer, and it writes this, he says, Dear Sir, I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block 3 of the accident reporting form. I put poor planning as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation.

on the brick layer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found that I had some bricks left over, which when weighed later were found to be 240 pounds. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel, creating a pulley that was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor, so securing the rope at the ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks onto it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 240 pounds of bricks. You will note on the accident reporting form that my weight is 135 pounds. Due to my surprise of being jerked off the ground, so suddenly I lost my presence of mine and

forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward in an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions, and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3 of the accident form. Slowing only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep, deep into the pulley, which I mentioned in paragraph two of this correspondence. Fortunately, by this time I regained my presence of mine, was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fill out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds. I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth, and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body. Here my luck began to change slightly.

The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fill into the pile of bricks, and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked. I'm sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mine and let go of the rope. The empty 50-pound barrel weighing more than the rope, I had let go, fill rapidly to the earth, resulting in the two broken forearms and wrists, which when I raised my arms to protect myself, it crashed into. I hope this information satisfactorily fulfills your request for further information. This is entitled knowing when to let go. And it's fun because it's such a graphic example of the reactive trance getting us in trouble. And you might think, well, yeah, but where's the opportunity to release resistance and come into presence with this?

And you're right. you know, if you're getting dragged up and down the side of a building, you probably won't pause and breathe and reconnect, although it might have really helped this poor guy. So as we know, we're often relying on our survival reflexes and it's appropriate. You know, they help us survive. If you're on the highway and someone cuts you off, you know, we swerve and our child's playing on rocks about to fall. We act really quickly. For me last week, I was walking on a path on the river and a fox came trotting toward me. And it didn't stop. It kept coming at me. And all of a sudden I realized, oh my gosh, this is

this fox is rabid. And I yanked my dog off of the path. You know, it was no thoughts, no breathing. It was instantaneous. And it was confirmed later by a park ranger that in fact there was a rabid fox around the park area. But the point is we need that quick twitch of reflex of the primitive survival brain and those moments were in a trance, we're hijacked by the amygdala, yet it's essential for survival. The challenges when that hijacking is ongoing where we're regularly in some sort of a reactive trance and if you track you your own suffering, it comes down to that habitual reactivity of resisting present moment and instead the reflex to control, to judge, to grasp. And you can see it, let's say, in life patterns and

relationships, how stuck we can get in being defended, that flinch response to tighten against criticism or how we won't risk intimacy or being controlling, trying to make others do what we want. We can see it how quickly we come down on ourselves or see it with addictive patterns, you know, rather than befriending our inner life and where the wounds are exiting with substances or dependent relationships or overworking, anxious mental obsessing. So learning to undo that resistance to the present moment, learning to undo those habits of controlling. It's essential for evolving. It's what allows us to really live from our full potential, from our wisdom, from our love. So as you know, I've been talking about radical acceptance

for decades, or at least some of you know, and what I'm finding is that every time I revisit it, it's a deepening understanding of just how powerful and key it is to waking up. I still remember my first radical acceptance workshop that I taught at Omega. And I taught at the same time that another workshop was given. I think it was Tony Horton, who's the creator of a well-known exercise regime. So at lunch, a woman had a conversation with a woman from my class had a conversation with a young man who had been attending that other workshop. And he was a competitive athlete with a very, you know, chiseled body. And his eyes kept darting around the room. He was, you know, kind of in a kind of hyper mode. And they each were telling each other about the workshops they were attending. So he was telling her what he was hoping to achieve from his. And she was. And she was. was talking about how the power of meditation to bring us into presence in a way that can change our lives. And so the conversation then went like this. He said, I don't have time for something like meditation. She was silent. He says, well, how long do you meditate every day? And she says,

well, it ranges between 15 minutes and 45 or so. Then there's a long pause. And he says, so what's the world record for meditation? And you can feel the energy of it and that the gifts of radical acceptance of meditating is not achieving anything. It's really becoming fully who we are, living from an awakened heart mind. And the Buddha is a kind of arctippal example of our evolutionary capacity to meet life. with radical acceptance, to shift from that trance of reactivity to living from our wholeness. And I often reflect on a wonderful story that was told by Ticknat Han of the Buddha's encounter with the shadow god Mara. Mara is the god of greed and hatred and delusion and all the parts

of ourselves we don't like. And as many know that Mara appeared regularly, you know, through the Buddha's life. And Ticknad Han describes one encounter where Mara appears as the Buddha's teaching a large gathering out in a field and Mara goes skirting around the outside edges of the group. And the Buddha's loyal attendant Ananda saw him and he was kind of freaked out and he went up to the Buddha and said, oh no, Mara's here. But the Buddha basically said, no worries. he went right over to Mara and he said, I see you Mara. Come, let's have tea. I see you Mara. Let's have tea. So let me share what strikes me about this, which is he didn't go to Mara and say, I love you or embrace Mara, you know, the N of Rain. He wasn't it wasn't nurturing, he wasn't celebrating.

Nar did he hear about Mara being there and then say, well, who or what is aware of Mara being here and just see Mara is a kind of empty and permanent phenomena. You know, there's no Buddha, there's no Mara. No, he didn't do any of that. He just, this very first step, I see you, Mara, come, let's have tea. We begin with radical acceptance, with not resisting the reality that's right here. There's a transformational power in the moments if something difficult arises in your life, let's say a wave of fear or anger.

And if you can pause, and if in that pause you can, with mindful awareness, just say, I see you anger or I see you fear. Let's have tea. Let me just be with this. In those moments, you're no longer a victim of those emotions. You're no longer possessed by them. You're not in a reactive trance anymore because here's what happens. And this is the kind of magical alchemy of a moment of radical acceptance of that mindful presence

is that when you see the wave you become the ocean. You can then relate to the wave and let it be there. You're no longer caught inside the wave and that's where the freedom is. I see you Mara. In that moment you're no longer. longer at war with Mara, you're a larger awareness. When I was new to teaching retreats, I think it was one of my first few retreats, I encountered one of the most powerful illustrations of this shift from being kind of caught in something

to that presence, that freedom that can respond. And it was, it happened when I was doing that. an interview, meeting with one man who had Alzheimer's and he was there with his wife and his wife is helping him move through the retreat. But I asked him how he was doing because he seemed to be in pretty good shape. And he described something that happened right at the beginning, the early onset when symptoms were first showing up. He was a psychologist, also a meditator of about 15 years. He was giving a talk somewhere and he had about 100 people there. He arrived give the talk. And he froze, he went blank. He didn't even know why he was there, what

people were waiting for there, you know, why they had come. And so here's what he did. First he didn't do anything, he just kind of paused. And then he started naming what was going on inside him. He would say, you know, anxious. And then he bowed. Then he would say, confused and bow, embarrassed, bow. He kept doing that and finally, you know, heart pounding, bow, breathing and relaxing, bow, and things calm down and one of the students, they had tears in their eyes and they said, you know, no one has ever taught us like this. And what had he done? You know, first, when the intensity started happening, he paused. He didn't try to resist it. He didn't try to pretend nothing. He just paused. And he began naming

what was going on. I see you, Mara. Bowling, just letting it be. You know, radical acceptance interrupts the habitual reaction. It gives space for what's here to unfold in a healing way. And for this man, he shifted from the victim of a disease, from somebody who was possessed by reactivity to a larger awareness and presence. So I have found it helpful when caught to consider radical acceptance as two questions. And the first question is, what is happening inside me right now? What is happening inside me right now? And that leads to being able to say, I see you, Mara, to seeing what's here. And the second question is, and can I be with this or let it be, whichever you'd prefer? And that's the A of Rain, the allowing. If there's anything

you remember from this talk, these two questions can really be the key to the kingdom. And you might just try them now, just pause for a moment. Close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast and bring the attention inward. And ask yourself, what's happening inside me right now? And can I be with this? Can I let this be? And just notice even in a few moments some enlarging of presence that you're not as much caught inside something as you're the ocean, you're the awareness. it's aware. Okay, so come on back. I often get the question, doesn't this make radical acceptance a real passive or lead us to inactivity? And, you know, what if we're an abusive relationship or what about all the suffering in our society? So I just want to say here that activity is an

essential expression of our, of our aliveness. You know, we speak, we move around, we engage with our world. The question is, when we get disturbing news or when someone mistreats us, or as we face our world, as we face the racism, the spiking of anti-Semitism, the undermining of democracy, all the sufferings of our world, climate change, do we react? Or do we respond? In other words, do we react from the amygdala, from our conditioned fears, with anger, with blame, with more violence? Are, do we have the capacity to pause, to open to the moment without resistance, to feel what's here, and then respond from a larger space of awareness, from our natural intelligence and our heart? React or respond?

the reality is for most of us because our habits of reactivity are so deeply grooved that when things happen, like the kind of things I just named, when we get stressed, we find ourselves initially launching into our old patterns. And I found it really helpful to reassure myself that no matter how much I've been on a reactive streak, no matter how long it's been going on, in the moments of remembering, oh yeah, what's happening inside me right now? Can I be with this? That's a moment where the doors to freedom start opening. And the more we interrupt the old habits, the more we're nourishing new, wholesome kind of patterning. So a recent example of the power of radical acceptance in my life,

one of my most intentional interrupting patterns is when I find myself judging others. I have a kind of a dedication to, okay, let's interrupt this when I catch on that it's going on. Well, a few weeks ago, I had some email exchanges with a colleague I worked quite closely with, and we were disagreeing about the timing and the content and the shaping of an event. And I felt the growing tension in the emails, you know, the messages were getting a little bit more and more terse. Well, right before going to bed, I shot off an email arguing my position. And then I went offline, which in retrospect is kind of like hanging up on somebody, right? Anyway, I was in a reactive streak.

And then there I am in bed and I'm tossing and turning and it's clear that my tone was pushy and not collaborative and not friendly. And I realized I had, you know, broken two cardinal rules. and one is to wait and never send an email when I'm inwardly reacting and judging, and the others never, ever, ever do it in the evening when I'm tired and on empty. So there I am in bed and there's no distraction. So there's nothing to do but feel that inward churning. You know how it is.

So, okay, let's be with the reality. That was the beginning of, okay, let's pause. and stop resisting by being off in my thoughts and sense what's here. So I deepened attention and what's happening inside me right now and I could feel the sense of rightness and annoyance and the judging the tightness of my body. Okay, can I be with this? So feeling it, allowing it. Again, this is the recognizing and allowing of rain. But then I continue doing it. Okay, well, what's inside me in this moment, recognizing again, oh, so self-aversion. I'm just not liking that righteous judging self.

Can I be with that, with that self-aversion? So just feeling it, opening to that. And then again, what's happening now inside me? Oh, really wanting to feel connection, to feel open-heartedness. Okay? Be with that, that longing. being with it, being with it. And gradually the longing became just that more open-heartedness and realizing, okay, now I'm back home in more of that ocean-ness, more of who I really am.

So that process of recognizing and allowing over and over again undid the resistance and the reactivity. So next day we later in the afternoon, we jumped on the phone and, you know, I apologize for my tone and being overbearing and own my uptightness. And it was warm. It was collaborative. We found our way and actually left with a deepened sense of connection and appreciation because the bumps are never the problem. It's not the bumps. It's when we keep on resisting the underlying unpleasantness, keep needing to be right, keep being defended, keep being aggressive, and not really touch into what's going on underneath, that we end up getting caught in the suffering. So radical acceptance, it undoes that conditioning to resist the waves,

to resist reality. And by releasing resistance, and this is the, the gift. We open to a fullness and oceaness of who we are. And it's a superpower and it really frees our spirit. Let me just pause again here and invite you to check in if it helps to close your eyes or lower your gaze. Again, to have that intention towards radical acceptance to simply notice what's happening right here inside you. and let it be. Keep coming into your body. What's happening now? And can I be with this? Can you say yes to this moment? And then yes to this moment. Notice what happens if the yes gets very unconditional and full. You can continue in presence if you want to keep the eyes closed,

that's fine or open them. Some of you might have noticed for some moments when you really are saying yes, that there's that taste of freedom, that tenderness, the openness, the mystery. And some of you might have noticed that it's unfamiliar because we're so used to tensing and controlling and actually resisting opening to the moment. And then if there were strong wants or fears going on inside you, unpleasantness, that's very challenging to really open. So that's where I want to go now. We're going to take a look at how, you know, how does radical acceptance help us loosen the grip when we're really caught in that trance of reacting to very unpleasant emotions?

How do we move towards the compassion and freedom then? And it always helps me to understand that emotions get stuck when there's a looping of negative thoughts and feelings. For instance, one of the big stuck places, something's wrong with me, that sense of deficiency. And when we have thoughts of what's wrong with us, that brings up fear or shame. And then the fear or shame in our body drives more thinking where we're looking for evidence of what's wrong with us and it keeps looping. Or let's say we're feeling like something's wrong with you, with some other person with somebody we know or don't know, those thoughts of what's wrong with them bring up anger and blame, which then deepen the feelings in the body, which bring up

more anger and blame, and we can be in that looping for a long time. To turn towards radical acceptance, it's really important to understand that as long as there's that looping, as long as there's a focus on the mental images and soundbites, the thoughts about the world, we can't shift our reactivity. It'll keep stirring up the difficult emotions because thoughts are a way of resisting reality of trying to control things. So radical acceptance begins when you shift your attention from the storyline, from the thoughts, to the felt experience in the body. I just want to say that again, that radical acceptance starts coming alive when you move your attention from the thoughts, from the storyline, to what's actually going on inside your body to somatic experience. Again,

it's an undoing of resistance to reality and our thoughts when we're in those loopings are resisting reality. And it's not easy to make it. that shift to our body because we're so addicted to our thinking. I mean, they give us a sense of being in control. And of course they're an essential roadmap. But when it comes to when we're really stuck in suffering and when it comes to life's deepest challenges, you know, conflict with ourselves, conflict with others, facing aging, sickness, loss, death, when we're really dealing with the true uncertainty of life, if we can't arrive in a full presence, we'll have no access to true wisdom, to a real refuge. I'll share with you, I saw this little cartoon of a woman who goes to

see a fortune teller and wants to find a way to contact her husband who passed away recently. And after some incantations, the fortune teller says, I'm getting your dear departed husband. he says, he can't believe you paid $45 for this. So our answer is not out there in another person or through our thoughts. It's coming right back here. It's making that you turn right back into what is going on inside us. And I'll share another personal story that has to do really the importance for me of the shift from stories to immediate experience. As I started writing this talk, and I often start talks a few weeks before I actually give them, you know, just kind of gathering and deepening into the domain.

So I was just starting to write this talk and I had put tofu in the oven. And I was aiming to have lunch ready before my next Zoom meeting. So when I went downstairs, I flipped and I seasoned the tofu. And then I had to do some more stuff so upstairs, so I went back up. And then when I went down to take it out finally, what I found was it was still on the counter. I'd never put it back in the oven again. I'd flipped it, seasoned it, and not put it back in. So there the oven was blasting away at 420 and my tofu was still sort of raw and had this instant wave of frustration.

I said something like, God damn, Tara, you're so stupid. And then, of course, that's not common self-talk. so I kind of smiled, you know, and shook my head. Okay, no big deal. Most of us have done mindless stuff. And then reflexively we blast ourselves and that kind of thing can pass, not go into a looping or a deep grudge. But here's the thing.

Through that day and the next, there was a handful of these other small things that went down, like not being able to remember the name of something. In this case, I was trying to remember the words, Kitchen Island, and all I could come up with, was kitchen counter. Jonathan had to move this large bag of birdseed because I could not get it to move. You know, he had to help me with a computer tech thing, ditsy little things, you know, walking into the room and forgetting why, being outside walking and my knee starting to hurt.

The point is, by the end of that next day, I wasn't feeling so good about myself. There was a sense, okay, the operating systems are declining. And then with that, the judgment, the self-feeling diminished less than. So, of course, this is not the first time I've faced up to this aging thing, you know, the body mind deteriorating. But it's a continued reminder that it requires attention because if I, and I'll say we, because it's all of us, if we are identified with our body, and how it functions or our mind and how it functions, there's trouble. You know, it's so easy to believe and get oppressed by the story that who I am is this deficient person who's losing it.

That's a very compelling story, that being imprisoned in that kind of trance of feeling deficient. And what's so clear is that this is a perfect example of where radical acceptance, that courageous, unresisting presence can actually become the gateway to real freedom and fearlessness and peace. So on this or any challenge, we start right where we are if we want to cut through with radical acceptance, right where we are. What is happening inside me right now?

And for me, in this instance, you know, I recognize, okay, self-judgment, aversion, okay, allow it, be with it. Just let it be there. Okay, self-version, it's there. And then, well, what's happening now? Vulnerability, a fear of the future. Okay, allow it, let it be there. and just really opening to, okay, there's this kind of survival level vulnerability going on. And the more deeply I let that be, you know, really opening to that, this natural tenderness arose.

There was just compassion towards, you know, my own vulnerability and the plight of all of us, that we all have that. And so it would kind of like there was an enlarging becoming that field of compassion that's holding this body, mind and all body minds, like a field that really is timeless, it's formless, it's really loving presence beyond the body and the mind. And with that, there's a lot of peace. And I really find over and over again that this is the gift of radical acceptance that when there's that unresisting presence with reality, our awareness awakened. So we're We're inhabiting a larger truth and reality. We're inhabiting the ocean-ness of our being, that timeless loving presence.

And we can be with whatever waves, all the waves of this living, dying world, we can be with it. So in this talk, my primary focus is really being on accepting ourselves, our own life, but the same exact process extends to accepting others. recently working with a woman who was judging her father for his political beliefs. And as we know, there's just a lot of dividedness, families, friends, and so on. So I asked her, okay, when you encounter this, when it comes to mind or when you're with your father, what goes on inside you? That's that first question.

What is happening inside you? And her response was that way I think of all the harm that is, you. his beliefs cause. So, okay, let that be there and if you get under your thoughts, then what's happening in your body? You have the thought that there's a lot of harm. What happens in your body then? Because you have to get under the storyline. So she got in touch with anger and I said, okay, can you be with that? And she opened to the anger and opened to the anger and I said, now what? What's happening inside you now? And there was fear. You know, there's fear for how our world is going. Open to that, open, open. Again, this is, I see you tomorrow, let's have tea,

being with what's here. And under the fear, I care about this world. I care. Because we'll find that under our reactivity, there's something we're caring about. And she did that. So I said, let that care fill you. Let it be all it is. Just be with that. And that was her becoming at home with a larger sense of her own being. That's where she realized, oh, this is my nature, this is the ocean, this is who I am. And when I had her bring her father to mind, there was sadness and there was more room for him to be as he is. She was the ocean being with the waves and she could also remember what she loved about him. And of course it required repeating because anytime there's deep grooves of habits, we have to keep interrupting, keep repeating, but Sue is on a trajectory towards freedom.

So the point is, if you're judging someone and you want to move towards that larger sense of being acceptance, the pathway is to open up to what is coming up in your body under the thoughts and the stories and keep bringing that radical acceptance to that. What is something? What is happening, can I be with this? Bringing as much presence and gentleness and kindness as you can. And you'll find you'll naturally undo the resistance that not only was pushing away the negative feelings, but also pushing away the vastness and beauty and wisdom that's inside you. Now, I mentioned earlier and I want to say again, it doesn't make us passive. Of course you'll act.

You know, possibly you'll communicate with the person if it has to do with judging someone or you'll engage in the world. But the process of presencing and acceptance will allow you to act from your true intelligence and heart. I mean, that's why the great leaders, current and past, leaders, leaders like Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, they dedicated time to practices like this that connect us to our heart and our spirit. So this is the invitation for each of us that if we want to cultivate this superpower of radical acceptance, to start where you are, keep paying attention to what's arising inside you

without adding further judgment or resistance. And this is the secret pathway to inner peace and wholeness. You might want to just take a moment to listen to the poet Dorothy Hunt. Her poems called Peace is this moment without judgment. Do you think peace will come some other place than here, some other time than now? in some other heart than yours. Peace is this moment without judgment, that is all. This moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome. Okay, friends, let's do a closing meditation. This meditation will explore bringing radical acceptance to some place where we're judging ourselves. And I invite you to take a moment to resettle. In other words, feel your posture,

let your eyes close or your gaze be downcast and settle right here. Take a few full breaths. And you might bring to mind where you're finding yourself getting snagged in self-judgment these days and maybe bring to mind a situation that reminds you. of when you turn on yourself, let the situation be close in so you can remind yourself of what happened and then let yourself feel the presence of the judge, that there's judging going on, what you're believing about yourself, and come into your body as fully as possible and sense that when that judge is there, when there's the judging, what's happening inside you right now? Maybe there's a voicing, it's true.

Then ask again. So if that's what the voice is saying, what's the experience in your body of that? Is there shame, embarrassment, fear? The first question always is, what is happening inside me right now? And then can you be with that? Can you just open to letting that shame or fear or embarrassment or whatever it is? be there. You might breathe with it. Just offer that gentle presence that allows. This is having tea. You're just letting it be there. Staying in your body, you might ask, okay, so what's happening

now? Is there something more that's going on that wants my attention? Maybe something layered under that. Just noticing what's there. Again, you're saying, I see you Mara. And then have tea with that, just open to it. Breathe, be gentle, a non-resisting presence with what's here. In a sense, if there's something else going on, what is happening inside me right now? Can I be with that? Let that be as much as it is. Maybe you're beginning to feel a sense of tenderness or kindness or care, sensing sadness for being stuck. You might sense underneath at all, what it is you're really caring about, what's mattering to you, what you're longing for, what is happening inside me in that deepest way.

And can I let that be? It's sensing in the presence that's here who you really are, that awareness, that compassion that's holding and relating to the waves. Just noticing the shift from being caught in the ways of judgment or reactivity, activity to a larger presence that's more truly your home. And sense the peace, the freedom, when you can respond to the waves but not be in reaction. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart space where everything that is is welcome.

taking these final few moments to sense the blessing of that, that heart space, or everything that is welcome. Taking a few full breaths, if your eyes are closed, you might open them. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for participating, for being together with me on this path and send you all blessings, all love. May this power of radical acceptance really serve to heal and free your heart. Namaste.

For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.