Tara Brach - Spiritual Reparenting: Loving Ourselves into Healing (from retreat)

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

Mindfulness and compassion, when brought to our wounded heart, have the capacity to rewire our brain and free our spirit. This talk explores the ways we get trapped in the trance of feeling unworthy and unlovable, and how, with a wise attention, we can profoundly transform our relationship with our inner life. NOTE: this talk was given at the 5-day "The Undivided Heart" residential retreat on 2024-04-09.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit Tarabrock.com. Namaste, good afternoon, welcome back into the hall together. The poet Rumi has a really well-known teaching. How many of you have heard of it, that your path is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself. that you've built against it. And then he goes on to say, and embrace them.

Embrace them. So it invites a powerful inquiry that you can drop in at any moment, which is, what is between me and loving presence right now? So this afternoon, what I'd like to do is focus on one of the major all-time barriers to love, which is the way we turn on ourselves with self-judgment, with the sense of feeling flawed, feeling unlovable, deficient, that whole terrain. And it often focuses on personal failure,

ways we feel it we failed or we are afraid we're going to fail. So we're going to do that constellation and then explore the pathways of loving ourselves, into healing. Sound fun? Our Dharma party for the afternoon? Yeah. So retreats are an amazing zone

because at a retreat, you're deepening attention, and it's actually an opportunity to witness close in just how chronic judging happens. And by the way, this is really part of the architecture of the brain, to keep evaluating. And if you start watching the mind, it's evaluating everything.

You know, I like this, I don't like that, more of this, less of that. But the main focus of its evaluations, maybe you've noticed this, is this inner monitoring saying, you know, how am I doing now? You know, how's my meditation? You know, how am I functioning? How am I operating? And quite often we'll sense a difference between how we think we should be and how we are. And that difference, that gap causes a lot of suffering.

So we watch it, we see it. I mean, I saw it myself when I had that back spasm and then what proliferated afterwards is I haven't taken care of myself well. It's my fault. It's like immediately it turned. in some sort of a negative implication on self. So we see it here, we see it at home that in some way I'm letting this person down or I'm not doing the job I need to do at work or some way making mistakes, falling short

in parenting for those who are parents. So this is the domain, the territory. And when I first wrote radical acceptance, which addresses this territory, and I first wrote, this territory and went on tour at one of the colleges I was going to give a workshop at. They had a big poster of me and, you know, my face. Really, it was huge. It actually covered a whole wall of the student union. I don't know why they made it so big.

And the caption underneath was, something is wrong with me. What a welcome into a new community, you know. So I realized this morning that the first story, in radical acceptance, which was a story of me getting on to myself in terms of, okay, trance of unworthiness, I'm stuck. It was 50 years ago, 50, you know, 5-0, half century, you know, if you want to do the computations and the math, it's like I'm about to turn 71. So, you know, here we are, you know, five decades later and talking still still

about this trance of unworthiness. You might have thought I'd get over it, right? But you know, I still find that whenever I'm having a hard time, you know, when I'm anxious or irritable or whatever, depressed feeling, if I investigate under, there's some sense of falling short, of some sort of deficiency in this personal self. or that I'm about to fall short. The pattern still arises,

but the difference is this, that the trance is more transparent. Do you know what I mean? It's like I see it more, so there's more of that witnessing, that space that, and happening a space that's bigger. So I don't believe it so much.

And then there's less lag time and saying, oh, yeah, that. and then, you know, kindness, which dissolves and opens me back into reality again. But I'm sharing that because it's a very persistent patterning. And, you know, it's really this constellation of something's wrong, which is the basic fear in life, this vigilance, something's going to go wrong, and that that something's wrong as moi. It's very pervasive.

And so you can find whether it's in spiritual healing or in any kind of psychotherapy, right at the hub is this kind of constellation of a not-okay self that feels unlovable. Does this feel familiar, territory? Are you with me on this? Sort of. Okay. So I collect animal cartoons. I think they're really helpful and not taking things so personally.

And I'll just share a couple. One's an elephant on a very large couch saying to the therapist, sometimes even if I stand in the middle of the room, no one acknowledges me. And then there's the bird on the couch saying, my mother used to puke in my mouth. Okay, there's big dog support group. I didn't want to be a guard dog.

I wanted to be a dancer. And then the nickname support group. I went from Charlie to Chuck to Sir Chuckles McFurry pants. Another one goes, that's nothing. I was Coltrane, then train, and now they call me chug-a-chug-a-wo-woo. So I'm now wondering about our new pups' self-esteem because I've kind of taken to calling her fluffer-nutter. What do you think? Is that okay?

Okay, so the trance of unworthiness, we're not born feeling unworthy and unlovable, right? We don't come into being in that way. It's conditioned by our caregivers who are conditioned by our society, which takes us right back to one of the big creation stories on the planet, which you know about, which is that we got kicked out of the garden because of our bad, which is why feeling unworthy are not enough or not okay about ourselves goes hand in hand with unlovable and rejected. If there's something wrong with us, we're going to get kicked out of the garden.

We're not going to belong. So one of my favorite stories is this young boy is looking at the old family Bible and a dried leaf falls out and he gets all excited, he runs into the kitchen saying, look, mom, it's Adam's underpants. And these messages of good and bad, they just permeate everything. I think of, there's a writer, Butch Hancock, and he says this, he says, life in my hometown in Texas tossed me two things. One is God loves you, and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth, and you should save it for someone you love. So it's fun, but what I'm really getting at is that our society tells us that to belong, to be lovable, you need to be like

this, and then it gives us these criteria. And our parents pass that down, so it's not unconditional belonging. It's be like this. In other words, have a certain kind of intelligence. And what does that do to our kids? We know there are multiple kinds of intelligences. What does it do for the children that don't have the absolutely, you know, revered, you know, left-brain analytic? It makes them feel stupid, which just gets me so sad to think of. And then, of course, we have all these standards about how your body is supposed to look

and what kinds of personalities and how to be successful and how much money and you get the idea. And as many know the most harmful ranking, because these are rankings of worth, the most harmful rankings come from the dominant culture, and they let those who are non-dominate because of race or religion or sexuality or gender, whatever, they send the message of, you're infuriate. which gets internalized, invisible, not belonging. Just to take some moments and consider where we are in North Carolina and how much it's marked by the enslavement and trafficking of black people and it wasn't just back then

a few generations ago, got carried forward. And it's all over the country, of course, every institution on some level still is still is primed to send that profound toxicity that shape our children's lives. So I'm naming this because we often think of this path as kind of individual, whereas it's really the collective realities that gets stamped into our brain. It's like we don't think our own thoughts, we're thinking society's thoughts. it gets delivered through caregivers. And I want to do a little reflection on caregivers just to sense a little bit about that messaging because depending on how much intrinsic belonging

and worth, you know, intrinsic goodness our caregivers felt, their fears will then tend them to pass on the society's messages of, you know, if you don't meet the standard, you're falling short. Conditional love. I really think true, secure belonging is rare because of that, that most of us have to deal with that on some level. So let's just do a brief reflection, which mostly means you either close your eyes or lower your gaze and perhaps take a few breaths just to bring yourself into your body and into the moment. And you might bring to mind a typical childhood scene with caregivers, maybe when you're five years old or around then, wherever you might be. You know, around a dining room table or outside or living room or wherever.

And just type of whether you have one, two, more caregivers, just imagine them there. But one at a time, imagine them looking at you and sense what message is in their eyes. Okay, you're five years old. This is like what message is really coming through about how they experience you? I mean, is there acceptance as you are? Or do they want you to be more or different in some way? do you feel seen and understood or not? Do you feel valued, loved for who you are?

Or in some way, distanced, cut off, having to perform or be a certain way? I mean, in their presence, do you like yourself? Do you feel at home? How do you feel some sense of separateness, lack of belonging? And most basically, what do you sense? that young child most needed from caregivers. How many of you was it some version of being seen and loved? Can I see by hands being seen and loved?

Many find that it comes down to that and that they felt insecure in those qualities. There's a story I love in Annie Lamont shares it and she's describing a little girl who was asked what her father, who was a minister, what he preached and what he told people at, you know, on Sundays. And she said, well, on Sunday he stands in front of everyone and he says, they are beautiful and God loves them exactly the way they are and they really don't have to worry because they all have each other. But then by Tuesday they forget.

And this goes and they come back to try. church on Sunday and he tells them they're beautiful and God loves them just the way they are and they don't have to worry because they have each other. It's a beautiful message and it's hard to let it in when we've lived with a life of messaging that in some way we're invisible, unseen or unloved. It's a very powerful thing. A couple of months ago I was talking with Father Gregory Boyle who wrote tattoos on the heart. Really amazing guy. So he works with ex-gang members

who have also mostly served time from the L.A. area. And he created Homeboys Industries, which now has 300 kind of different industries or jobs where they hire the people in the program. It's the largest intervention in gang rehab program in the world. And, you know, it's hard to imagine a population that would feel more broken and flawed

and unlovable and unworthy to this one. So I was really interested in talking to them because here's the thing that through this program they find amazing healing. There's just an amazing thing going on, you know, in their work with their families. So as you can imagine, I was very interested in, you know, what's the secret sauce in the this program. And the answer is, and he uses this word a lot, is cherishing that the basic message, this is kind of a three-part message, you belong, you have unshakable goodness, you are cherished. You belong. You have unshakable goodness. You are cherished.

more than any cognitive behavioral training, more than teaching about good choices, more than teaching about being accountable or responsible, this is prior more fundamental. You're cherished. See, I started with Rumi, find the barriers to love. Feeling cherished dissolves the barriers to love. Feeling cherished. It rewires our brain. You know, I often talk about Luis Cozzolino who describes that we're not survival of the fittest,

we're survival of the nurtured. A moment of feeling cherished starts rewiring the brain. So, Father Greg tells all these rewiring stories, really great stories. And one of them is a very tough tattooed guy, Moises, who comes to talk to him about entering the program. He looks like a fullback and he's kind of inscrutable and hard to read. And so he asks Moses some questions and finally he says, okay, I'll check with the counsel. And then Moses points to the packed reception room that was outside the office. He goes, this is what he says.

He says, so you are a father and these are your children. And Father Greg starts to respond, but he cuts him off because now he says, now I will tell you why I came into your office. And he looks at the floor. There's a long pause. And then he says, can I be your son? And then his stocky body leans forward and he kind of grips his face with his hands. He's crying.

And Father Greg leans forward and he whispers to him, imagine what a gift it would be to have a son like. you. So there's more crying and then Moses, this is the final thing he says, he says, the one thing, the one thing, that is the one thing I only ever wanted to hear from my own father. So this is from somebody who's hit bottom and yet I think if we pause here, just all of us for a moment and just reflect, if you had to... a parent, caregiver who looked at you with a really deep presence and tenderness and said, what a gift to have you.

Just imagine it. I mean, I can feel, just as I say that I imagine, I can feel it's like, oh, there's a longing in me for that that I wasn't even in touch with. Do you know what I mean? Feeling cherished lets us realize the truth of our belonging. We want that. So, now you might be thinking, yes, but that means we're reliant on others to cherish us, you know, the parents, the ministers, the teachers, the healers, etc.

And it's true we do need to cherish each other. There's no question. And one of the powerful gifts of this practice we're doing together is it allows us to also do a kind of spiritual reparenting of our own being. because that's what it is. You know, we're learning to turn the attention inward and with mindfulness see what's here, be seen. And with heartfulness, hold with tenderness, be loved.

It's spiritually parenting. So here's the challenge with this way that we're actively here rewiring our brains, because we are, and that's what's happening, is that in order, we have to feel the emotions that come up, and in order to feel cherished, we have to stay with those emotions. In order to wake up through the emotions, we have to actually feel them just the way a parent, a good parent or caregiver, has to feel feelings with us. We have to feel attunement, right? So, what happens, and you may have been witnessing this, in your groups today are felt it yourself, is that in the moments that we really stay

with what's difficult, because the tendencies to push away, when we really stay, those emotions get transmuted and we open to a place that's increasingly tender, clear, and alive if we learn to stay. And this is like a really important Dharma understanding, because we're because the Tibetans call emotions the juice of the path, that it's not like we want them to go away so we can then get on to spiritual practice. There are the weather systems that come up and it's the waves that we experience, whatever metaphor you like, and it's in the process of being with that the essence is released of them.

Emotions are life-loving life. They're the most primitive expression of life wanting to protect and further life. They're made, they're energetically made of aliveness and clarity and tenderness. But what happens is because we react to them and we get caught in them, they get twisted. So the metaphor I like is that emotions are made like ice is made of water. They're like ice cubes. And in the moments that the light and warmth of the sun meets the ice cube, it melts and becomes its watery essence and rejoins the flow.

And not only that, the flow is enriched. in rich awareness when they've unraveled and unfolded. So I feel like it's really helpful to keep in mind when emotions arise that this is a form of life-loving life. Think of another animal cartoon. This is a mouse psychoanalyst and mouse is of course in a hole and his client is this dejected cat slumped against the wall. And what the mouse is saying is, don't worry, fantasies about devouring your therapist

are perfectly normal. Yes. But it's really a liberating thing to realize that when jealousy arises or craving or hatred or fear that this is still a loving life. And you might imagine and just take a moment that the next time you feel fear, you if you could pause and let that witnessing awareness remember, okay, this is a primitive form of life. It's loving life.

Protecting life, asking for a kind of tension. Your whole relationship to it changes. It really makes it possible to reparent the fear as soon as you realize that. So, let's look more closely at how we work with the difficult ones when they come up. And I'm going to carry forward a bit. You know, we've talked now, Jonathan talked a bit last night about rain and I did this morning and I want to keep deepening because built into rain are really the basic practices we're doing together, mindfulness, compassion, and then opening to awareness. So again, Rain, the R is the beginning of mindfulness where we

recognize what's going on. The A is the beginning of creating some heart space allowing. The eye deepens mindfulness as we begin to bring our real interest and investigate. The N, the strength of nurture will depend on how much you have in a very somatic way contacted the experience in your body. If you investigate in its abstract, your nurturing will be one step removed. If you investigate and feel that vulnerability deep, deep, deep in you, the nurturing will be very tender. So that's just a reminder.

So there are two different basic pathways in nurturing. And many of you are aware of this, I think, already. And one of them is that we can offer to our self from our own high self, our own awake heart. we can offer kindness. In other words, we have this kind of part of her being that's loving and witnessing and it can hold the smaller parts with kindness. And the second kind of nurturing is when we call on love from a larger source. And as I mentioned in one of the groups today, that is not a poor second cousin relative to the real nurturing, that if we were really strong spirit,

people, we'd be able to hold us. It's not like that, okay? We all, when we have emotions to get strong enough, get really regressed and young. And what that means is that there's no access in those moments to that larger witnessing self. Does that make sense? That we get cut off. And yet if we reach out to what we sense is some larger source, course, that begins to soften the armoring and the heart and to let the loving in. So it could be a dear friend, it could be a grandparent, somebody alive or not, a child, a pet, spiritual figure, ancestor, the natural part of the natural world. I want to read you from Joe Harjo, and she's a wonderful poet from the Creek Nation.

says this, she says, call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms. Animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor, call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners, increases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering.

It may return in pieces and tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long. So this is the process of calling out to something larger, letting that something larger speak to the beloved child. inside. And the story kind of reminds me of another, and the poem reminds me of another story that Greg told, Father Greg told, you can tell, it was a lot of inspiration from him. And this is about a young boy named Sharky. And as a child, his father was addicted to cocaine

and PCP and had restraining orders, but his father kept finding them wherever they were. And threatened to kill them and one time he ran out of the house and he called his mother and they met at a community center and he's there and he's sobbing and her message is, I am so sorry you had to go through that. So in the years that came as a teen he was involved with gang violence, he landed up addicted in prison. So he's in prison and he wants a different future. And an old veteran tells him that if he wants to change, you should call on God and ask for forgiveness, to pray for forgiveness. And so he does this. He prays and prays, but instead of forgiveness, God is holding a sobbing

sharky and saying only this, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. You sense what happened. The kindness of his mother that became, that became what was sacred for him. That's what came through his sense of God. And it was what he used, just that phrase, to reparent himself over the months and years to come. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. That was the message of kindness.

And since I'm sharing about him, I'll let you know, it did come to the point where he could say to his own father, I'm so sorry you had to go through this. Which goes to say that if we re-parent ourselves, we open to that heart space that really can hold others. Okay, so we call on the most resonant sources of nurturing. For one woman a few years ago, she was from Guatemala, she went to school in the States,

And then she was working with the Latinx community in the New York area, dealing with a lot of trauma, felt overwhelmed that she was falling short. And then she contacted her own early trauma, fear, and helplessness and feeling alone, even though she was the oldest of a lot of children. So she did rain. And when she got to nurturing, you know, I said, you know, hold that place with care and love. and there was no larger self to do that. So she called on her great-grandmother, who was a matriarch of the family, of course, really strong, loving, courageous woman

and also her aunts. So she could feel the female ancestors. And the message they had for her was, we are living through you. We are living through you, loving you, loving you, trust the healing power of your heart. Rain isn't a one shot. It was like over and over again,

but that message rewired her, tapped you into her own amazing courage. So you might wonder, and I hear this question a lot, that I can't self-nurture and I have no experience of a loving friend, of a loving God, of an ancestor, of me, you know, I have no experience of any of that. So when that happens, I feel like it's really helpful to act like the truth is true, that love is here, just act as if, it's okay to go through the motions, because that in you, which is even

trying to go through the motions, is love wanting you to feel better. Do you understand? just even going through the motions, there's a part of you that's wanting to heal. And what I often will do is say, well, just imagine, if you could, in any alternate world, what it is you wish would hold you and love you. What would that be like? Create it. Imagine it.

Because what you can imagine actually touches you into the reality. So I want to share a formative experience with nurturing for me, one that really taught me a lot. And it was years back, I went to a retreat right after the holidays. And about on day two of the treat, I got overwhelmed with feelings of being a bad person, personal badness. And it came because I looked back at the holidays and I realized that I had not really shown up for anybody. There was no authentic connecting and, you know, I don't have that long with these people, especially my parents.

And I just felt so bad about myself. So I practiced rain and when it got to nurturing, I tried every different way I could think of of holding myself or whatever. And it's like that sense of bad personhood dug in its heels. It's like, no, I don't deserve kindness. You know, it's like I really am bad. So I felt like I was hitting this kind of rock-bottom place of flawedness. And it was from there that the voice was, please love me, just to the universe.

It was like the voice, a very young voice just saying, please love me. And I kept repeating it until it was a kind of broken-hearted pleading. But the very nature of the broken-heartedness made me more porous so I could feel the tenderness of the universe. I remember this kind of sense of this a line I love, which is love is, love is always loving you. It's one of my favorite mantras now. Love is always loving you.

And it was like the sense that I really got that, that this porous heart had some of the space for that to feel that loving and that I could just let that in. And then after the rain just rest in that and realize that I am that love that's loving. It wasn't outside of me. It was like my spiritual heart was holding my human heart. So this is after the rain where we, once we've, there's been nurturing and then we relax into the presence that's there. My sense of why I was was no longer that bad failing flawed self.

It was the love that was loving and holding that place of vulnerability. And that is the shift that brings freedom from that small self that stuck. I want to just encourage you as you're practicing that if you're practicing rain, don't rush past after the rain. after there's some nurturing, sense the quality of presence and even if it's just a slight shift, notice the difference between the sense of who you are in that presence and initially the stuck place. This is Thomas Merton.

He says, in my darkest hour where everything seemed lost, I was granted a taste of that loving awareness without which I know my life. will be forever and complete. And I will not break faith with my awakened heart. I will not play the cynic. That is, I know it's true because I tasted it. I tasted it as true. I will not break faith with my awakened heart.

It's through these practices of seeing with mindfulness and holding with kindness that we open into that presence. presence, that loving presence that is who we are. And what a beautiful, beautiful sense not to break faith with that. Be true to that. Go ahead and trust it. It's certainly going to reap a lot more happiness and loving in the world than buying into something smaller. I want to read this clip. We're coming in to closing here. I want to read you a story I love that's more like a poem. And you can hear it again and again.

The author is Scott McClanahan. And he tells of a man who left home after an ugly fight with his parents. He stayed away for many years, some of which he spent in jail. When he was released, he wrote to his parents saying he'd be coming home and giving them the date. He asked that if they wanted to see him, oh, we're not ashamed of what had happened. that they, and of where he wound up, that they put a blanket on the clothes line. On the appointed day when they got off the train, he became anxious and started having painful doubts that they'd want to see him. The doubts became more insistent as he got closer to home

and remembered the horrible words that had been exchanged. He was about to turn back when he saw a blanket in a tree. Then he saw another. And as the house came and decided, saw the clothesline was covered in blankets, the yard was covered in blankets, the house was covered in blankets, and as parents were standing there, welcoming them home. So in this imperfect, conditioned world, we need to keep putting blankets out for ourselves. We need to keep inviting our spirit back, as Joy Hard Joe says, tenderly, like a beloved, child because so many of us have that imprint that something's wrong. And we need to put them out for each other, you know, putting out blankets of understanding and acceptance and love because

everybody you meet longs to feel cherished. Everybody. Everybody wants to feel included. Everybody wants that message of your cherished. You belong. You have unshakable goodness. So it's natural that we've received messages that block the experience of belonging, that keep us feeling small, that we could each go into our narratives of being small or separate or not okay. And it's really at the heart of this practice to pay attention and notice as Rumi said, what's blocking us? What's between me and loving in this moment?

And any judgment creates separation, any judgment. The more that we see that and the more that we just metaphorically put our hand on our heart, there's a kind of dissolving and we begin to taste over and over, there really is a sense that love is always loving and that we are that loving presence. So we'll do a brief meditation as part of closing. You know, I'm thinking that you've been sitting, why don't you take about a minute or so to take care of your bodies and then sit and we'll do this brief meditation?

And as you're ready to find a way of sitting that'll support you for this last few minutes, to take this first few moments to invite yourself into presence, and notice what pathway helps you. Is it taking a few long, deep breaths? Does it help to just briefly scan through the body and ask, well, what wants to let go? What wants to soften? I invite you just to bring to mind some part of life where you sense you turn on yourself,

where you're not accepting, where you're judging, where you know you kind of armor. Because when you're turned on yourself, it's a barrier to loving anywhere, really. It might be for the way you're navigating as a parent or friend or a teacher or healer at work. It might be ways you feel you get hooked in terms of addictive behaviors. Whatever it is. It might be just that chronic sense of not enough, not doing enough. Let yourself bring up a situation that triggers that where you're somewhat at order or at odds with yourself. I should be different. Something's wrong. And let yourself recognize that.

Again, this is a brief frame. Recognize that and recognize what comes with that. What's the strongest emotion that comes? Is it shame? Is it fear? Is there anger at yourself? Sensing whatever is most predominant, what most wants your attention right now. And then allow, let it be here. Let it belong. whatever the feelings are. Let yourself deep in attention, investigating this part that fuels a sense of failure, shame, judgment, self-hatred, fear, whatever it is, and ask what this place is believing. Is it simply I'm failing or I'm going to be rejected?

Something's wrong with me. Something bad's going to happen. The most basic way, when you're feeling unworthy or unlovable, what's it like in your body? Again, let the situation guide you when you're really caught, when you're triggered and turned on yourself. What does it feel like in your body? Your throat, your chest, your belly? And as we did earlier, if you can let your face express what you feel, let your body posture

express, it somatically helps you get in touch in a more deep way with the sense of shame, fear, aversion, unlovable. And you might deepen the sense of the somatic connection by putting your hand on your heart or wherever it feels natural to just anchor a sense of touch. And this is also a beginning of nurturing, really. Sense with the part of you that's caught in the trance of unworthiness or in lovability, what it most needs to remember, to trust, to know. If it could express what it wanted, would it be saying, please love me or please hold me, please respect me, please see me?

As you're attending, you might gently shift your posture, relax your face, and sense that you are invoking and inhabiting your most awake and loving experience of being, that you're listening from there right now to that part that has gotten caught in trance. And that can help you to sense how you want to respond. What's the message you want to offer inward? And again, if you haven't already, you might put your hand on your heart so that the message is both in words and touch, and you might even add in a sense of light and warmth.

It could be, trust your goodness. You have unshakable goodness. You are cherished. Just experiment. You're cherished. You belong. Trust your heart. Speak to it as if a beloved child.

And if it helps imagine those words, coming from a very compassionate being that's larger than yourself, a parent, a grandparent, an ancestor, the Buddha, whatever spiritual figure, part of nature, part of life, channels in a beautiful way the message and let your deep prayer be to let it in. Perhaps more than ever before you might sense to yourself, please, may I let in the truth of loving, that love is always loving me. Sensing that vulnerable part washed through with tenderness and love, with light, and then just relax open, noticing the presence, the quality of heart that's here, inhabiting that,

get familiar with it so that if you notice the sense of self when you started, the unworthy self or unlovable self and the shift, to some more awareness, to more of a space of loving presence, and knowing that as more the truth of who you are, I will not break faith with my awakened heart. Trusting that. You might ask yourself,

who would I be if I didn't believe or feel that something was wrong? and then with whatever comes up, sense that you can let go into that. Be that, be that space of awake awareness. So as we close, you might sense what it is that you want to remember, what feels important to you. So you can follow this pathway home over and over, this pathway to trusting, keeping faith with your awakened heart. Thank you, friends.

Thank you for your beautiful hearts and for being willing to be on this journey together. Blessings.