Becoming aware and mindful is not some magical tool where you will only experience pleasant moments. Instead, loving awareness will illuminate and hold everything- the success and delight and the pain and suffering. Even being overwhelmed by challenging emotions is a natural part of the journey. If you judge yourself against some impossible ideal of how you think you “should” be feeling and acting as you struggle, you’ll only add to your suffering.
Instead, listen to your thoughts with mindful awareness. You will see the evanescent nature of feelings and thoughts, that they are fleeting, all impermanent. And then you can begin to realize that just because you have a feeling or thought doesn’t mean you have to believe it- much less act on it- and certainly not get caught up in a whole stream of them. You can release the mind of some of its more dangerous patterns. Observing the mind with mindfulness brings liberation.
~Jack Kornfield
there’s nothing wrong with you or your thoughts……
inquiry for today~ what is a radical shift that you can’t imagine being real?
I grow silent
dear soul-
you speak.
~Rumi
