3.15.18 The Freeing of Our Essential Self

Self-doubt and self-recrimination exist in direct proportion 

to the volume of unacknowledged unaccepted unwitnessed 

emotions and experiences we hold, imprisoned, within us. 

As we learn to greet the day and welcome with mindfulness 

a few thoughts and feelings that rise up into our awareness,

 and be with them, without thinking, feeling them , 

we begin learning to identify each as "THAT is a feeling" 

or "THAT is a thought".

We begin to be inclusive of our entirety. 

We begin to whittle down the backlog of 

stuffed and discomfited and stored tough stuff 

we knew not what to do with. 

We begin to compost it all down, 

transforming it from the distress we turn away from, 

to that which we lovingly pull close, toward our essential self.

3.14.18 Huh. Narcissists. Psychopaths.

Huh. “Since [narcissists, psychopaths] ,deep down, feel themselves to be faultless,
 it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world 
they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world's fault. 

Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad. 

They project their own evil onto the world. 
They never think of themselves as evil;
on the other hand, they consequently see much evil in others."

M. Scott Peck

Addendum: And yet, don't forget, you can tell how aware they in fact are
by how they know what to hide.

3.14.18 No matter

Down by the farmers fields the hawks were pairing up, two by two. 
The buds on trees were growing, no matter how many northeasters sweeping through. 
So up we got and on we went, down to the stark quiet beauty of the riverside. 
Where both dogs romped and wandered and hunted, 
and our hearts filled with that which is true.

3.13.18 Hit the air

Sometimes talking about something
is necessary
To kill its power
To let the truth hit the air

3.13.18 Learning to just say Yes

And so , each day, we learn to say Yes, to this too. 
This part of the river of our experience.
We turn toward this thought or this feeling, 
that moment or comment or circumstance or choice. 
With patience and with tender compassion. 
Letting our love sink beneath the tumulus waves of today, 
down down to the momentous old depths.
As Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say to himself,
‘Darling, I am here with you, in this.’

3.13.18 Home home on the range

3.13.18 Know you are true

Be soothed, when you wake
honest and loving and true
Know you reside in your own fine life
of your own making
As you breach the edge of the winter field
the cusp of the spring season
the true song of your summer soul