Radical Acceptance

“Suddenly it became clear that all my desires and thoughts and feelings are an endless, changing parade,” she told me. And then, with a look of surprise she added, “I’m not making it happen.” For Sarah, this experience of an uncontrollable, ever-changing reality was a breakthrough that dramatically shifted how she related to herself. She wasn’t con

This is how an embodied presence awakens us from a trance: We free ourselves at the ground level from the reactivity that perpetuates our suffering.

In most moments we have an overlay of inner dialogue that comments on what is happening and plans what we might do next. We might greet a friend with a hug, but our moments of physical contact become blurred by our computations about how long to embrace or what we’re going to say when we’re done.

The simple action of having named the anxiety building before my talk opens my awareness. Anxiety may still be present, but the care and wakefulness I cultivate through noting allows me to feel more at home with myself.

Feeling not okay went hand in hand with deep loneliness. In my early teens I sometimes imagined that I was living inside a transparent orb that separated me from the people and life around me. When I felt good about myself and at ease with others, the bubble thinned until it was like an invisible wisp of gas. When I felt bad about myself, the walls

We experience our lives through our bodies whether we are aware of it or not. Yet we are usually so mesmerized by our ideas about the world that we miss out on much of our direct sensory experience.

When we take life personally by I-ing and my-ing, the universal sense that “something is wrong” easily solidifies into “something is wrong with me.” When I look into my own feelings of unworthiness, sometimes I can’t point to any significant way I’m actually falling short. Yet just this feeling of being a self, separate from others, brings up a fun

house for a moment

In his book Touching Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh draws upon the Buddha’s teachings to offer ways to handle situations when we’ve hurt others.

We might begin by scanning our body, noticing what we are feeling, especially in the throat, chest, abdomen and stomach, and then asking, “What is happening?” We might also ask, “What wants my attention right now?” or, “What is asking for acceptance?” Then we attend, with genuine interest and care, listening to our heart, body and mind.