The Wise Heart of Radical Acceptance, with Tara Brach

namaste and welcome i begin with a little story about a couple who had been married for 60 years and to stay together for that long you have to be completely honest with your partner so the husband and wife were really open and they shared everything and they didn't have secrets from each other except for one thing the wife kept a shoebox in the closet and she asked her husband not to open it or even to ask about it and the man didn't really actually think about the box until it was about 60 years in his wife got very sick and the doctor said she wouldn't make it and trying to sort out her their affairs the husband took the shoe box to his wife's bedside and she agreed it was time for him to see what's inside and his eyes widened as he discovered 95 000 and two crocheted dolls in the box and so the old woman explained well you know when we were to be married my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never find fault with your partner to never argue she told me that i've ever got angry with you it was caught up in blame or resentment i should just keep quiet and crochet a doll my husband was really deeply dodged two dolls meant she was really only angry with him twice in 60 years honey he said after really being overcome with emotions that explains the dolls but what about all the money where did it come from she said oh that well that's the money i made from selling all the dolls so as we know um we're fault finding beings you know out of our insecurity we find fault and we often fixate on the imperfections in ourselves and each other in life and most aren't so um you know clever at monetizing we're not so crafty there's an anonymous saying that goes like this who is unhappy the one who finds fault and the reality is that if we're habitual in judging you know and blaming then we're suffering and as we know often the deepest suffering is because we target ourselves we're at war with ourselves so this will be a little bit of the focus for this reflection because one of the core domains of spiritual awakening is stopping the war and there's a zen teaching i mentioned it last week that enlightenment freedom comes from being without anxiety about imperfection so the imperfections here but if we can be with it without reactivity it said you can say it more positively that the freedom comes from the acceptance of the life that's right here and i call it radical acceptance because it's an unconditional caring presence with life just as it is in this moment so we're going to explore together you know what this means in our lives how our relationship with imperfection how learning the art of radical acceptance really awakens our hearts wisdom and it allows for very deep healing and awakening and this talk will be really focusing on radical acceptance of our own imperfections so maybe a bit on the word imperfection you know it's the nature of nature to have imbalances instability chaos unpredictability you know there are physical faults in the earth's crust and they're ongoing violent weather events you know this is before the emergency of climate change there's been violent weather events through history exploding supernovas and really the stress of perpetual change so the only reason that we exist in material form you know with molecules and bodies and galaxies is an asymmetry of matter and antimatter produced from the big bang and physicists say that the the universe while it's currently you know expanding uh gravity will cause it to eventually collapse you know killing all life everywhere so imperfection instability forces of molecular attraction repulsion that's the name of the game and we are nature in human form you know we're shaped by these same forces of conditioning of irresistible attractions and aversions and inner storms and societal conflict and revolution and chaos so i'm framing it this way because the grounds of radical acceptance is a wise understanding that imperfection is intrinsic to all life forms so maybe i'll share a story that i think expresses this in a really pointed way a number of years ago probably now about 20 years ago a dear friend of mine luisa montero diaz is a teacher in our dc community we together went out with the goal of finding a buddha statue for the wednesday night class and we looked at a lot of them and we finally fell for one it just felt just right you know it was it had a kind of androgynous look a really wonderful blend of masculine and feminine of wisdom and compassion and so we were really excited to have it at class and i remember after teaching the class that night and letting people know about our our new buddha there were a few people looking closely at it standing around it and i noticed that one or two of them kind of had their heads tilted and they called me over and pointed out that the cast of the statue was leaning it was imperfect so you know we had we had found this imperfect buddha statue and we actually started playfully nicknaming our community the sangha the leaning buddha and it just as a way to help us all make peace with you know the universality of imperfection so i really loved that teaching of the leaning buddha it was very helpful and it's it's very much like a story i tell frequently of that solid gold buddha that was covered with plaster and clay that you know our spirits incarnate and develop these imperfect casts or coverings you know our imperfect bodies and our imperfect emotions and personalities and habits and they're all subject to the forces of conditioning you know generational trauma and very addicted speedy violin divided society or genetics or biography so we're all we all have these casts or coverings that are from forces that are outside of our control they're not personal you know there's a an understanding that you're not thinking your own thoughts you're thinking society's thoughts you know the strands of society that are most proximate so this is the challenge or the cause of suffering that we take our imperfect leanings personally you know we feel anxiety or shame or badness because of imperfections as if they define our essence and as social beings if if you feel that your essence is bad you know if you feel like your imperfections means your essence is bad that translates to you'll be rejected you'll be separate you'll be alone so it it's a life death matter so think about it i mean how much we take personally when we take our you know emotions and our our habits personally we we tend to think we lean in a particularly offensive way that we're worse than others you know that my depression or my insecurity or the way i you know eat too much sugar or whatever it is that we take personally that we're to blame for that and that it's more problematic than what other people are dealing with you know we have this delusion that others are reasonably normal that we're the one that's really leaning i mean really if you think about it how many have felt surprised when you find out that say somebody that you seems well put together maybe that you admired actually is struggling with a major prescription drug problem or has been an abusive relationship or in some ways been breaking the law you know we get surprised we get surprised at all the craziness in what had seemed like a normal family you know really is there any family that's actually normal i can just say the the older i get the more it seems clearer that any idea our appearance of normalcy are just ideas and appearances you know that everyone you meet is grappling with their version of leaning of imperfection and many taking it very personally so so here's the thing that if we take our cast our insecurities our obsessions our addictions personally we're gonna suffer it's like sensing that there's this self here behind the curtain like it's like the wizard of oz who owns and should be managing this body-mind behavior and that we're falling short on the job you know when we take it personally it's like as if i should be able to control this and i remember there was this t-shirt and it won one of the t-shirt awards and it said on it i suffer occasional delusions of adequacy so here's the point that our suffering is not because of the imperfection it's because we add on to the reality that there's imperfection that this is bad and i'm bad and often we add on to it that you're bad there's there's a metaphor you might remember i love this one from buddhist psychology and it's as if we go through life and we get shot repeatedly by two arrows and the first arrow is the inevitable pain of imperfection the physical pain that arises in our life or the grief or the hurt or the anger or the fear that's the first arrow the second arrow and this is what's important is when we make ourselves bad for what's happening so the first arrow is inevitable we cannot avoid the different range of intense painful emotions or physical feelings that are painful we can't avoid that the second arrow thinking oh this means i'm bad that's optional that's the place we have some agency that's the place where we can the pain will still be there but we can avoid the suffering so this is what i want to look into more because it's when we add the second arrow that we solidify that sense of a bad self so for example this last week i had a stretch of fatigue that was more intense than usual for me and so along with being tired and low energy there was kind of this sense of crankiness and and and i started noticing after a while that i was feeling increasingly grim and a kind of cynicism that comes when i'm actually feeling self-aversion so i started inquiring and i could sense this belief like in some way i'm falling short the fatigue is my fault you know i'm not doing a good job taking care of myself and then with that and i don't like this grim cranky self so the first arrow you know the fatigue thinking i was bad the second arrow really ended up contracting and bringing me down now i have seen the second arrowing frequently enough that it doesn't last long but when we second arrow repeatedly and we don't notice it we're continually telling ourselves we're we're bad for what's happening it locks in deeply my daughter-in-law is a nurse who works with high-risk births and mothers are often very very very ill that she works with and we were talking this week and she was describing how many patients she has that blame themselves for their illness so it's not just that they're there in the hospital feeling terrible but they're also feeling terrible about themselves like i made bad decisions i didn't take good care of myself i have bad life habits you know i am bad so just to know that the most painful and difficult inner experiences we have attract a second arrow of saying this means i'm bad you know if i'm angry i'm a bad person for feeling angry you know if i'm jealous something's wrong with me i'm bad if i'm hurt i shouldn't feel like that if i'm depressed something's wrong with me addictive behavior i'm bad and when we go from imperfect to i'm bad the trance of unworthiness locks in and it impacts our whole life it really creates a deep sense of not belonging of separation and you know the signs of the trance of unworthiness you know one of the big ones is that we're always comparing ourselves to more perfect others you know people who are more perfect in their their looks or their intelligence or their professional success their spiritual way of being someone sent me a cartoon this week a person is entering the kingdom of heaven and gods on the throne and god is as you might sometimes imagine a dog because and and this is the caption the dog saying so the joyful loving eternally forgiving nature of dogs never tipped you off so we know the signs you know we're comparing ourselves to others we try to we try out endless ways of trying to perfect ourselves you know and trying to control ourselves self-control you know garrison keeler says my ancestors were puritans from england they arrived here in 1648 in hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under english law at that time so we try to control ourselves to transfer unworthiness means we're just really afraid of making mistakes mistakes mean a lot because they go right to bad self feelings and not only are we inwardly down on ourself in the trance of unworthiness we tend to also get very addicted to directing blame outward this is a silly one from yogi berra he says i never blame myself when i'm not hitting i just blame the bat and if it keeps up i change bats after all if i know it's not my fault that i'm not hitting how can i get mad at myself sorry that that one's silly but the real deal is that when we feel insecure we need to fixate on others imperfections we try to make ourselves more right and put others down and the deep insecurities there but the way it plays out is fixating on others and of course it can lead to huge violence it's the grounds of fundamentalism i'm right you're wrong we wouldn't need to feel so right if we weren't basically feeling insecure i mean i think of hitler who's been psychoanalyzed more than maybe anybody on the planet and he had a deep fear of his own impurity you know of birth defects there was incest in his family he really wanted to cover and so he spent his time seeing the world as tainted so much of the world that needed to be eradicated so the point is that the more that we compare with others the more that we seek perfectionism you know the more that we blame others the more solid that inner sense of i'm flawed something's wrong with me you the more we're identified as a a leaning buddha and we forget the buddha part of it so there's both a challenge and a possibility when we consider this these stories like the leaning buddha or the the golden buddha with the plaster casting and the challenge is we tend to fixate on the fact of leaning or the plaster casting you know we get identified there with the imperfection and the more we judge it the more it obscures the gold the truth of who we really are so there's the challenge there that tendency to fixate on the coverings on the leaning and then there's the possibility which is that we can intentionally bring a radical acceptance a real presence and care to the imperfections like shift that relationship so rather than judging it as bad shift it to a profound presence and acceptance that actually will then reveal our essence our basic goodness and this is the invitation of the path that we can learn in the present moment to encounter what's here with an open accepting heart and in so doing we actually reconnect with the truth of the awareness and love that's more fundamental than any notion of leaning any imperfection that we've hitched our identity to and the secret is that the more you trust the gold the more you trust not instead of the leaning the buddha part the the awake heart part the actual posture and uh expressions change we actually become more aligned we can't grasp after that if we're saying oh i want to be more aligned then we'll actually not pay attention to the very source which is the goodness so i'm going to pause here i've been speaking a bit and maybe ask you to check inside do a little bit of a reflection [Music] and that might mean for some of you to close your eyes to turn your attention inward and just to ask yourself what are the imperfections about yourself you typically focus on what are the ways that you lean that you fixate on and it might have to do with your your body your physical appearance might have to do with your energy your health maybe it's your way of being in a relationship as a parent or a partner or friend the way you think you fall short maybe the imperfection or the leaning has to do with your mental capacities your contribution to the world your personality so just to just to scan and send so where do you where do you really fixate in terms of imperfection where do you get identified and say well that's me and forget that this is just conditioning it's a casting there's more where do you forget maybe bring an imperfection something about you to mine anger your own judging addictive behavior and just notice how you relate to it how much second arrowing is there that i'm bad for being this way how much second arrowing is there i'm bad for being this way let's see if you can just witness for a bit how that happens how it seems so personal how do you forget how many live with imperfection that's just part of the conditioning now for a moment just imagine what would your life be like if you could relate to these particular imperfections with radical acceptance if you could regard them in this moment with presence and kindness how would you be what if you were without anxiety about imperfection who would you be what would your life be like if you find it helpful to journal you might consider taking that question what would my life be like if i was without anxiety about imperfection who would i be just to take that and consider it reflect with it a bit for now i'd just like to share with you what happens when often i talk to people about radical acceptance this is the main fear is that if i accept the imperfection let's say my addictive behavior or how i hurt others how will i be accountable how will i change so i want to say right here as clearly as i can that radical acceptance is an unconditional accepting presence with how we are right in this moment this current time it's an allowing presence with what is which means it's a courageous honest acknowledgement of actuality it's saying these feelings this pattern of behavior they're here and there's it's not fighting it it's not resisting it it's the awake lucid heart space this is okay it's here i'm allowing but this is here i'm not adding on badness or bad self to it radical acceptance does not mean that you have no intention or want to continue the path of healing and transforming and awakening in other words i might have an addictive behavior except that it's occurring and know that there'll be freedom and healing by continuing to attend deeply and move beyond it still i'm not second arrowing saying bad self not taking it personally this is crucial this allowing presence with what is i i frequently go to the i think brilliant uh realization from carl rogers who said it wasn't until i accepted myself just as i was that i was free to change in other words that this radical acceptance is the precondition to transformation but it takes real dedication not to make a difficult experience or behavior of ours mean we're bad it's a very deep trance in us that second arrowing and from my experience we don't really dedicate ourselves to radical acceptance until we very directly face the pain of radical non-acceptance of how much we're caught up in personal badness and i'll share my own story here which i've actually shared in radical acceptance quite fully in my first book that i had in my 20s very much realized the trance of unworthiness and you know practicing with it with meditation and with self-compassion but i was pretty hooked on comparing mind and self-judging when i was 27 um i had been in the ashram for a while a spiritual community and i was publicly attacked and berated by the lead meditation teacher in a very aggressive abusive way i had had a miscarriage and a few days afterwards he had me stand up in front of a group of people and he just went at me saying he blamed it he said you you had a miscarriage because of your ego all you care about is your your work your ambition i was in the middle of a phd program then you said all you care about is yourself you know you had sex but you didn't really care about having a child it was so very demeaning very shaming and it put me into pro most painful inner crisis i had ever had which was it played right into my self-doubts about being about you know feeling i was a bad person that i was selfish ambitious egotistical and i realized that either i believe that message you're bad are i found a way of accepting whatever imperfections were there but still basically trusting my goodness the purity of my heart that was that was the choice there you know do i believe him do i believe these messages and believe the messages of my own self-doubt or do i find a way of accepting myself that's so profound that i really can trust basic goodness and i think it was the spiritual survivor in me that that really chose and it came through a prayer you know i i felt this very very deep prayer that in a sense i was like calling on the beloved calling on the loving awareness that pervades this whole universe and saying please may i love and accept myself just as i am may i love and accept myself just as i am that prayer didn't mean i didn't want to keep growing and waking up and moving beyond being you know kind of playing out and perfect stuff it didn't mean that it just meant may i love and accept what's right here you know facing the reality of imperfection but not holding it so personally not taking it as a stain on my basic goodness and i can promise you that that this path of radical acceptance has not stopped me from attending to the imperfections you know the different ways that um i saw myself through the years being driven or selfish or controlling or aggressive it actually made it possible to wake up from habits that caused me and others harm because the foundation was one of presence and care so there is an organic sequence friends it really is very very intuitive and organic that we need to start by accepting the waves that are here the the imperfections and and from that presence and acceptance we start sensing and trusting more and more the loving awareness the purity that's our essence and being able to then bring attention to whatever we want to work on in a much more intelligent way because we're not so identified it doesn't feel so personal so to get a little practical here for most of us there's a whole constellation of imperfections that keep us feeling there's something wrong that keep us self-aversive and anxious so the practice that works is just to start with right where we are with whatever is arising in us and each round doesn't matter the particular content each round will deepen the strength of of that resolve to hold what's here with kindness with acceptance and to sense like we're holding the waves and remembering the ocean until the ocean the who we really are becomes more and more the truth that we can rest in so another example that wasn't that long ago of how this practice can work was with a a student i've known his family for years and three children and he uh found himself becoming increasingly short-tempered judgmental harsh really angry blaming caught in it with his 14 year old who and this 14 year old had his own very strong temper his own anger he was kind of a domineering personality with his younger you know aggressive with his younger siblings and very disrespectful towards his dad was 14. and his wife was increasingly upset with him for not controlling his temper and he felt self-hatred for losing his temper again and again at his son and so we were working together and he shared a recent outbreak of his temper it happened early in the pandemic his wife had kind of walked in when he was losing his temper and really want you know wanted him to start therapy online and what had happened was it was his son's night for cleaning up after dinner his son disappeared he found him in his room on his computer told him to come clean up came to the kitchen put away a little bit of food and left it still a mess so and again he disappeared back into the video games not school work so when his father found him there a second round he just started yelling at him saying you know you're making life hard for everyone you know and really blasting him just when his wife entered the room and um so when we worked with it and then you can work with a with something where an imperfection that happened recently and just bring it into your mind and really start to gain some insight so we brought rain to that episode and he began with recognizing you know in him and he could still feel it both his anger and also a shame about his anger okay so that was the cluster there and the a of rain allow means rather than adding more to it just let that be there and the eye of rain is investigate and that's where he could sense the background belief going on while he's disrespecting me and causing trouble but worse the belief i'm out of control i'm bad i'm hurting others that i love i'm ruining relationships i'm hurting my family and with that a tremendous amount of of shame and fear and i could feel him very identified this is when taking it very personally the leaning buddha you know really bad self and i said is it familiar this feeling of bad self and he paused for a long time and he said very much because he because he was remembering himself as a young you know maybe 11 10 12 i don't know but as a really angry frustrated child himself and being very out of control and his mother had been sick she had breast cancer she was young and had breast cancer his father was just completely enraged at him because he kept you know he his father even told him you're making your mother sick you're a bad kid you know and he was uh you know when he was telling me this he had tears in his eyes he said i couldn't help but i was just this hyperactive kid bouncing against the walls nobody was paying attention to me everybody was too busy and so i asked him well what does that ashamed young pardon you most need this is the part that's ashamed of his anger out of controlness what does that part need and this is again part of that inquiry that investigation that presence and he knew he needed that deep profound acceptance that forgiveness that you're still lovable and i said you know who could who could communicate it best and his mom who's been dead for a while he said my mother she knew i couldn't help it so then anna rayne nurturing he just imagined kind of the spirit or energy of his mother saying forgiven forgiven i know you can't help it i love you as you are profound acceptance and it gave him more ease his adult self more ease just to feel that that energy was being accepted forgiven and it gave him more of a sense of openheartedness and when we started talking and he said i can't believe i didn't really just see it more directly i couldn't help it back then acting out like that and my son can't help it um he can't help it when he loses his temper when he gets caught in his energies and his emotions and so his practice was really radical acceptance of his own experience you know of course he intended not to lose his temper but radical acceptance of what was going on inside him and it extended to a son to know that you know he needed to set boundaries with his son but not slam him with rage more than that he knew his son needed attention from getting in touch with his own young self i got an email several months later because i kind of want to give you a sense of where this unfolded to what happened when he was just really intending radical acceptance that being that the forgiving mother energy towards himself he said he started to take his son rock climbing because it was something that had always let him get very focused very relaxed and his son really took to it and they were returning home from one of their outings and his son said something to him like you know i feel kind of crazy at home and he asked him what he meant and his son clammed up he was 14. but he's but he said to us and you know when i was your age you know i was like you really strong and full of energy and i sometimes felt crazy at home too and to be honest i still do there's a son kind of cracked a smile but then he got more serious and he said to his son you know there's nothing i regret more than when that crazy ends up as anger at you i'm so so sorry and it really touches me to share that you know just the email and what he was finding was that his the change the shift in him being more open and more intelligent and how he dealt with the son didn't come from hating himself for his anger you had to go through a process of radical acceptance of forgiving that that leaning in him was there not letting be so personal like it was his badness it's just it was conditioned it was there and if he as he could hold it like that he was then more able to see what his son needed and respond to a son but here's the thing sometimes we can't embrace the imperfection alone sometimes we just can't have enough perspectives since it it's not so personal and we need others to remind us to remind us that we're forgivable that essentially we're good and we can do that we can like he did bring to mind someone who loves us it doesn't matter whether they're alive or not but just sense the radical acceptance from another being it could be a spiritual figure you know i i call on the beloved it could be buddha jesus could be someone currently in our life and it could be done actively there's a story maybe to share with you one woman who needed that kind of in-person support she had found out when she was in therapy with her adult daughter they did some joint therapy together her daughter revealed that her stepfather who was this woman's second husband had sexually abused her for several years during a time this woman had been drinking and oblivious to it so this woman spiraled into a very dark hole of self-hatred you know just it's just the pain of knowing that on some level she had allowed harm to her daughter and um she went to a retired teacher she had been in school with there's also catholic priest told him of you know her horrible failings and the feelings of desperation she was suicidal really what'd he do is he took her hand in his and i'm doing it right now and he he drew a circle you know with in the center of her hand and said you know this is this is the place you're living right now and it's filled with with anger and self-hatred and shame and it's really painful and then he said what you need to do is remember this and he he put his big priest hands over hers and he said this is the boundless mercy of the divine you know this this is the love of the universe this not a blind eye to the harm but not to recoil from embracing your being knowing your pure heart that's the capacity of that loving awareness and if you can feel this and again he you know that circle in the middle then honestly face the feelings and experience of what you're going through but also remember this the kingdom of mercy as he put it you'll discover the healing of compassion so for months she was she was completely locked into that that very vicious kind of self-hate and every time it would get strong she'd sense that priest's hand over hers that kind of field of mercy the radical acceptance really of the universe and gradually she could find that her own awareness could hold her with that same loving full tender acceptance and as that happened she was increasingly able to hold a space for her daughter that was very very healing and loving which had not been possible when she had been at war with herself we need help we often need others to help us remember that it's not so personal and that our basic essence is pure we need that whether it's a reminder from whatever sense of of a spiritual figure or people we trust we need that that yes there's a leaning and the leaning can be incredibly hurtful you know we're all imperfect we didn't sign up for our particular conditioning we didn't sign up for it it's not our fault and there's a place of agency it's not our fault it's not our fault the addictions the anger the fears the depression the sorrows the jealousy it's not our fault and the place of agency is in the present moment there's a possibility of in some way seeing it feeling it and making room for it with a deep acceptance it's courageous it's honest it's coming back home to a larger sense of being and when we do that we actually start trusting who we are and having fresh creative ways of working with the parts of ourselves that have been difficult so we're going to explore this in our closing meditation how to work with the leaning parts of ourselves i just want to kind of summarize by naming what really are to me the two great gifts of radical acceptance why i keep coming back to it in my own life and in teaching and one is that when we accept the leanings the the conditioning the imperfections and we don't make it so personal we don't add on bad self but we just open to it there's a profound wisdom that arises that we really are not defined by the imperfection they're there it's like waves in an ocean they're there but that oceanness is still who we are and we come home to that we see ever more clearly in a moment of self-judgment it blocks the gold it blocks the sense of who we really are so the first gift of radical acceptance of releasing that second arrow of blame is it reveals the truth the wholeness the purity of our spirit the second is that when we've opened our hearts to ourself in this way that's the way we truly open our hearts to the world you know if we're down on our own imperfections we are not really open to the world and that lets us when we do open to ourselves it lets us help others embrace their imperfections the priests could do for the woman you know in a fundamental way the more we open to ourselves the more we truly feel a reverence for life everywhere we sense how all beings are an expression of the gold we see past the mass past the coverings radical acceptance is really the only way we can be truly intimate you know in any moment that we have an agenda like the other person has to be different for us to love them we're miles and miles away from connection i remember ramadash the spiritual teacher ramdas used to talk about his relationship with his father talked about it a lot and he said it changed radically when his father was kind of approaching he was really an elder approaching death he said i finally allowed him to be who he was instead of trying to make him into who i thought he should be and he stopped trying to make me into who he thought i should be and we became french so again friends it doesn't mean that when someone behaves hurtfully are in the wider community when we encounter let's say social injustice that we go off and crochet dolls you know or that we are in some way condoning or what that we be passionate you know out of a love for life we need to act and the possibility is that we have the wisdom to first arrive in that courageous radical acceptance of what's happening right now whatever it is and from that presence from that open-hearted space from that clarity then we respond and then we create the boundaries we need or we protect others we protect ourselves we speak out we know to go into nature go rock climbing whatever it is that moves towards more healing so like to close and give you a chance to again survey this leaning buddha of your own being this imperfect body and mind and personality and constellation of behaviors and to we'll practice a little you might again consider if there's any part of the leaning that you most react to that you'd benefit from from exploring more radical acceptance again to scan [Music] and sense if there's a behavior that's very hard to accept an emotion or a way of thinking that you're really aversive to you might think there's so many and it doesn't matter what you practice with anything that you choose can be a useful portal for you so just choosing something and feel your intention as we begin really towards more truth more awareness more openheartedness bring your curiosity to this as we begin the the reign of self-compassion the reign of radical acceptance so be aware of whatever you're judging you might bring it close in maybe there's a feel maybe you're feeling it right now in you what you're judging your own fear or your own judgment or maybe you're feeling some sense of jealousy or anger or maybe there's a behavior that's recent that's part of your current life that you are judging bring it bring it right close in [Music] and just notice the thoughts and feelings that come up around this imperfection this way you lean invite you to start with whatever feels strongest so you begin by recognizing okay i'm feeling shame or fear or anger self-aversion so recognized means you just name what you're noticing and then allow means just let it be there if it's self-aversion okay feeling self-aversion just to name it it's like this let it be there matt gives you the possibility of beginning to investigate to feel more sense of perspective and truth then you might notice what you're believing when you are encountering this imperfection maybe you're believing that you're you're bad because you're hurting others or you're bad because you're hurting yourself that you should be different you should be able to control you should be able to improve often there's a shed so notice what you're believing and with whatever you're believing feeling your body what it's like when you're down on yourself when you're believing you're bad field in your body maybe there's a sinking feeling a contraction a tightness notice where it's happening and you might put your hand on your heart just to keep your attention right here in your body often there's a lot that goes on in the throat or chest or belly but also putting your hand on your heart is a way of accompanying it's a beginning of really softening and opening and acceptance you might breathe with what you're feeling this is the place inside that's identified with badness just to feel it deepen your attention and just notice what does this place need right now to let go a little to open to be more at peace what would you need to remember to trust for some the reminder is just trust your goodness there's some the need is to feel forgiven and you can sense that for some it's just some basic okayness that you're not alone that others feel it too and as you sense what's needed this is where we go to the end of rain nurturing offer it just sense that you can call on a very awake awareness that's here a loving awake awareness and offer what's needed you might hear the message trust your goodness and offer it are forgiven forgiven or it's okay sweetheart since this larger awareness that's really who you are offering a reminder to that stuck place that's identified and feeling bad and if it helps to have the message come from another that's quite fine from someone you know cares and loves you is wise or maybe from a loving spiritual figure you can imagine like those priests hands that there's an embrace of something larger saying to let go it's okay this is like a wave it's a part of you it's not the fullness the wholeness forgive forgive let it in take some courage or take some willingness let in that possibility of forgiveness that that your essence is forgivable your essence is pure tender heart space as you feel ready let yourself sense the presence that's here what's emerged what's shifted sensing the awareness that's here that can include life's imperfections the different waves of emotion feelings thoughts just remembering the ocean that what moves through is not so personal that what you are judging the imperfection the leaning everyone has imperfection and leaning it's not so personal there's room and sensing in that space the inherent goodness the awakeness the tenderness shining through again you might just ask yourself who would you be if you could meet more and more of your moments with radical acceptance with this unconditional caring inclusive presence i'd like to close with a poem that i love and that i share quite regularly this is from my friend the poet danny falls why wait for your awakening why wait for your awakening would you hold back when the beloved beckons would you say eyes down cast i'm not worthy i'm afraid my motives aren't pure do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door forgive yourself forgive yourself now is the only time you have to be whole now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true nature perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain please oh please don't continue to believe your stories of separation and failure this is the day of your awakening thank you my friends for your presence for your willingness to explore and open my prayers that we can hold hands and continue to embrace this changing life with all its challenges and messiness and mystery and keep reminding each other and ourselves of the love and the awareness that's our essence namaste and blessings [Music] you

Channel: Tara Brach

Views: 147,840

Keywords: Tara Brach, dharmarain108108108108, dharma, meditation, mindfulness, wisdom, radical acceptance, self-judgment, truth, awareness, love, waves, unworthiness, reality, being, connectedness

Id: IBgYV23RI6w

Length: 63min 46sec (3826 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021