Tara Brach - Reflection: Awakening through Conflict (13 min)

Episode Date: March 19, 2016

Guided Reflection: Awakening through Conflict (from a talk given on 2014-04-23) - (13 min) “We live in a field where our emotions are an open loop – we affect each other. When we’re with someone who’s blaming, we tighten. Anger makes us tighten. When we’re with someone who’s open and caring, we become more open. It’s very, very powerful what’s possible when we put down the blame and we connect with our own being.” A guided reflection: If we learn to release blame and deepen attention to our embodied experience, conflict can become a portal for more loving, alive relationships and awakening into the fullness of our being. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With thanks and love, Tara

The following meditation is led by Tara Brock. To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com. In a field where our emotions, it's an open loop. We affect each other. And when we're with somebody that's blaming, we tighten. I mean, anger makes us tighten. When we're with somebody that's open and caring, we become more open.

It's very, very powerful what's possible when we put down the blame and we connect with our own being. So I'd like to give you a chance to just explore a little and know that this is a life practice, so you're getting a taste, and that if you leave with a little more of a conscious commitment to letting conflict be an opportunity to wake up, a portal. There's a tremendous amount of freedom and opening that's possible. So come sitting comfortably and take a moment as you're pausing to begin to invite your attention right into your body. Feel yourself breathing, feel the sensations of your sitting posture,

You might let come to mind some situation where you feel that you get caught in a habitual way where there's a sense of separation, reactivity, conflict with another person. And as I often say, it's best not to choose something that taps into a deep sense of trauma. This could be somebody at work, colleague where it's not so collegial, boss or employee. It could be a friend where you just keep hitting up against the same patterning or a sibling, parent, child, our partner. The situation where you get caught in conflict and that you have a curiosity and a care that you'd be more awake in this. that you feel that kind of intention right now. So you bring the situation close in

so that you sense a particular time setting where you get triggered and see the place you're in and notice whatever the look on the other person's face might be, what kind of things they're saying, what kind of things you're saying, Let the interaction go until you sense that you're really charged up in some way. Maybe that there's something that that other person is saying or a way they're behaving

that most evokes in you the reaction where you get locked in, where you feel stuck, where you feel stuck, where you don't have very much flexibility in how you're behaving. and just freeze it there. And you might sense when you're in that one, in that particular moment, you might even let your posture assume what it's like for you. You might feel your face and let the expression on your face be what it might be. Exaggerate a little bit.

You might sense just briefly what you're believing in those moments. I'm not respected, I'm not loved, I'm not going to get what I want. Notice how the blame is take shape and then go right into your body and feel where you feel most vulnerable. What's really asking for attention in your body? You check your throat, chest, your belly. Sensations that are there. Is it fiery?

Is it big pressure, fiery, hot energy like anger? the tight clench of fear or that ache, hollow feeling with hurt, fresher, weighty heart. What's the feeling? What's the emotion? Feel the most vulnerable place in you. And as if you could let that place tell you, what is it needing? What's that place most needing or wanting? is it need to be accepted, to be loved, to be understood.

If it helps you to put your hand on your heart so you really deepen the attention you're offering, I often put my hand very gently and just sense that this is the attending and befriending that you are really offering, it's from your highest self, your highest being, this attention, and listening to the place that's most vulnerable, just connecting with the part of you that needs attention. You may breathe with it and just let it be felt. The hurt, the fear, just offering that space of compassion,

let it unfold itself as it needs to and sense if there's any other message or communication from the place in you that's most vulnerable. what does it want you to know? What happens to that vulnerability when you really hold it with a tenderness? Let that be your intention. And as you feel some connection

with your inner life, you might sense that you could bring your attention to the other person. And with curiosity and care, try to sense into them as you were sensing into yourself. How is this person hurting or afraid? What's behind those behaviors? What might this person be needing?

So just kind of waking up your empathy. And can you imagine with this person if you both just named from the vulnerability what's been going on, just named it? I've just been feeling like I need more. love, need more attention, need to be seen, whatever it is that each of you has a chance to say that, what's true for you. It's not about the other person, it's about what's true for you, but you're each holding a heart space that lets the other have their feeling and

their need be expressed. Can you imagine speaking truth and listening together so that you become that shared heart space that has room for the different feelings that are moving through, but your identity is shifted. You're no longer caught in the separate egoic self, but you're resting in something larger and a togetherness that can then bring care and attention to the needs that are here. Close with the poem Peace by Dorothy Hunt. Do you think peace requires an end to war, tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself? Do you think peace will come some other place than here, some other time than now, and 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 namaste Thank you.