“You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”~ Martin Luther 

Unpleasant, challenging, and, frankly, bad things happen sometimes. They happen in the world, in our relationships, jobs, bodies, finances, and families. Many of these difficulties we can’t prevent. That said, there is one thing we can do. We can say yes to all the things we don’t want.

It’s a paradoxical solution, but it works. Once we accept that things will not always go the way we wish they would, we can more easily accept the unpleasantness, emotional havoc, and frustrations inherent in everyone’s life.

I don’t like those things any more than you do. And, having been on this earth for more than three score and 10, I have even less patience for them now than I used to; however, I know that my job is to bear everything I can. It’s not fun, but it always changes. My job, and maybe it’s yours too, is to find as much joy as possible amid the chaos of even the most predictable life.

As my friend Betsy Johnson likes to say, life gets lifey. I like it as it’s a shorthand way of acknowledging that we’re not going to like it all.

Sometimes, when life gets a little too lifey for your body, mind, and spirit to assimilate with acceptance, let yourself be in a miserable mood. It won’t last. Let yourself get angry. I wouldn’t suggest taking it out on somebody, but you can make it safe to feel the feeling. Let yourself feel anxious, it’s unpleasant, and can feel scary, but it’s temporary.

Slow down. Don’t try to cross everything off your to-do list. The world will still keep spinning on its axis. Allowing time to be with what is helps you cope with the discomfort that often comes from feeling less in control. Trust me, with time you can shift your relationship to the inevitable bad moods, bad news, and unpleasant interactions that are part of even the best life.

Give yourself a break. That might mean wanting less so you can work less, simplifying your social life, doing certain chores less frequently, cooking simpler food, or staring into space. It can be helpful to look at a typical day and ask yourself if everything you spent time on was really necessary, except anything fun or satisfying.

Life is going be how it is, whether we like it or not. And we’re going to get through everything, even if we feel tense, anxious, angry, frustrated, or any other unpleasant emotion. The fact is we managed to live through everything, so far. You don’t have to do it with a great attitude. If you’re not in school anymore, no one is grading you except you, and that brings up another point. A hefty dose of self-compassion goes a long way to helping you be in the moment, however, that moment appears.

Be curious. Curiosity and a willingness to experiment with doing even the littlest thing differently, can save your emotional bacon.

Curiosity and experimentation invite pleasure into your life. What new delight can you discover? How much more can you savor food, music, nature, movement, good company, a book, TV, or anything else that engages your five senses? How much can you savor simply being? I know that’s a tall order in our society that’s hell-bent for leather on doing. You might even get curious and experiment with how it feels to look at the clouds, lie in a relaxing Epsom salt bath, or fully taste whatever food you’re eating.

If you’re paying attention, even the most predictable life is full of ups and downs. Inside you, outside you, and interpersonally. It’s just the way it is. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could roll with those vicissitudes with grace and acceptance, but that’s not always possible. Sometimes, we just react, and it isn’t pretty. By squeezing joy out of as many things as possible, you not only help balance the yin and yang of life but also steal yourself for the times that feel scary or challenging.

If it’s any comfort, know this: none of us came here with a user manual. Living in our little earth suits, interacting with different people, each one whose head is its own world, and facing myriad challenges we never could have imagined as technology complicates our lives, knowledge of world events that gets delivered to us in a nanosecond, and we’re bombarded by choices on a scale never before imagined in the history of humanity can be tough.

Just give yourself a break. It’s not easy being human. Seek out pleasure. Infuse your day with meaning, whether it’s the accomplishment of cleaning the kitchen floor, or doing neurosurgery. Everything is valid, and anything can be as meaningful as you decide it is.

Remember: everyone is just muddling through, no matter what it looks like. You’re living on a spinning blue planet in the middle of trillions of galaxies with 8 billion other people. How could that not be challenging?

Starting today, give yourself a break, take it easy, and enjoy whatever you possibly can.

When you live from your intuitive core, your belly, your heart, let your soul lead and spirit guide you, your words and actions will be naturally subversive.

You will go to your edge. You will soften. Become wildly tender.

The question is, will you wholly inhabit your own revolution? In beauty? This inner revolution is a perpetual ceremony of the heart. It’s what you are for.

When you are real, cooked down to the essence, rather than half-baked to get approval, to look good, the projections from others may fly, seek you out, and try to stick to you. Don’t let them. Instead, let your authenticity support you in carrying on whole-hearted, vulnerable conversations to resolve whatever arises. It is hard work. Uncomfortable. Deeply human. Can be harrowing. And often downright amazing. Intimate. Naked. Courageous work is marked by our solid presence. Here. Now.

I’d rather be whole than good, C. G. Jung said. And by whole, he meant real, messy, ensouled, deeply human, heartbroken open with compassion flowing first to ourselves, to resource and prepare to let it flow widely, to others.

Being too comfortable, amenable, pliable to the point of contorting yourself — is a ticket to selling your soul right up the river. Don’t buy it. When you live from your own knowingness, from your gut and your wildly-rooted intelligence, you feel alive. Genuinely, creatively alive.

What is Your Authentic Self? 

Being real — true to your Self, your soul — is gritty. And grit causes friction, and makes fire to clear the way for living a revolutionary act. This act is marked by the action that the earth and the soul of the world are crying out for. And the cry is going to get louder, more pain-filled, and grievous before enough souls answer wholeheartedly.

When you get real, it is actually not about you. Your individual program is only the ground from which you step. From which you step and choose whether you will make this life of yours a walk of grit and beauty, or one of accommodation to the forces that insist you do it their way, be well-behaved, produce, consume, make nice, and as the poet, Mary Oliver says, “barely breathing and calling it a life.”

Thing is we’re not talking a self-improvement project; that’s only the gateway. We are being used, so to speak; one way or the other, we go consciously, or we are abducted — individually and collectively, now. So it’s a great time to dive in.

When we realize we have no choice but to offer ourselves up — like a sacrifice — to the mystery of being alive, this guidance insists on shaping us as a soul-centered contributor. And we’re in it! Soul’s got us. And the mystery carries us along. We’re goners to those egoic, mechanistic, competitive ways; the ways that have undone the earth and so many souls who walk the earth, swim her waters, send roots down into her, and watch from the skies.

To inhabit your own core, your vital, knowing center, and a soul-centered way of being, you need to do the inner excavation. What we call, in Jungian psychology-speak, Shadow work and in shamanic-speak, Underworld soul work, including ego-dismemberment work to heal old wounds and retrieve parts of your soul you had otherwise disowned or split off. We need these pieces of our souls, as well as aspects of our bodies, and our connection with Spirit, and with the earth, along with the Other-than-human-ones and wild intelligent forms of life — to feel deliciously alive, ready to roll, to care for our own souls and look out for others. 

This is real adult work, asking everything of you. And will alter your world completely, but before that happens you’ll be met with severing old ways, dismemberment, metaphoric death, dreams, visions — both lovely and horrifically heart-pounding, yummy, gut-wrenching, Beauty, raging tears, sweet snot, broken open heart, blue-shimmering darkness, warm, comforting light. Rebirth. Love. Hope. A deep sense of connection with it all. And a palpable knowing of what you are for.

So it’s a slow dive, a conscious descent into the depths of your soul, the dark ground of your being and your dreams: the Underworld of your psyche. This is vital work — no way around it — to discover what you’ve tucked away in the archetypal Shadow of your own psyche. If you’re lucky you will unearth what you had otherwise disowned to adapt to the egoic, mechanistic, competitive, earth-ravaging ways of modern Western culture. And most often, these pieces of your otherwise whole psyche that you had disowned are what makes you utterly You. Beautifully. Creatively. Wildly alive. Authentically so. You. And you are needed here.

Your essential soul’s powers — what you were born with before you lost track of them and they, you — are to be found there, in that excavation into your dark depths, awaiting you to carry them home like mama leopard carries kitties. With a fierce tenderness, knowing that all life — yours, your beloveds, the earth, humans, and other than humans — is at stake. The world needs you to be fully alive. Real. The world needs you to find, bring home, and embody your soul’s gifts and healing powers. It’s messy work. It’s what we are for.

When you are transparent, you will stand out as you are truly seen. When you are transparent, others can “see through” you into you as your heart and true essence shine. You are clear, direct, and kind. You are not an enigma; you don’t leave people scratching their heads wondering what you just said and did.

You do not hide. You are honest to the bone. You are courage enfleshed.

What Does it Mean to be Congruent? 

When you are congruent, you are wholistically aligned. What you think, say, feel in your heart, feel in your body, and your actions will line up to support and reflect each other. You know it in your body, often in your gut, when you put your attention there.

Congruent. Authenticity happens in the guts and bowels of your life. Being authentic is the grunt work of the soul, of any deeply human, spiritual path. Being half here, half there, half-hearted, faking it to look good, strategizing to make things easier for yourself — that’s the common way of the unconscious clotted middle, driven by our egoic, addicted culture. It’s a way that lacks wholeheartedness. Lacks real courage to let the heartbreak. Shatter. Broken whole and holy open to finally know compassion for self, others, and earth. To live and love — on fire, fully alive. 

Being authentic and soul-centered costs you your ticket to ride from the collective mainstream to the illusion of safety and security. And opens the door to your bloody and glistening, broken whole heart — reveals to you the honey of this wildly delicious, messy life. Leaves you and those you touch, feeling radically free. Without choice now. Solid and light. Authenticity strips away all that is NOT real. All that is not made from love, to love. All that is of enriched soul and in-spired Spirit remains. There is no living a soul-centered life without being authentic — without mustering the courage to do the excavating in the dark: the Shadow work.

Again, C. G. Jung: “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”

What will you do? 

We have been taught from a very young age that honesty is the best policy. We are taught to be honest in all our dealings, big or small. We are schooled never to lie. We are told repeatedly that honesty is the most important of all ethics. However, what people tend to forget to teach us is the importance of self-honesty.

Being true to yourself is very important. You can be honest with the world, but as long as you are not honest with yourself, you are not being fair. Give the most importance to what you think of yourself rather than what others think of you. You can justify to the world why you did what you did, but as long you are not honest with yourself, it can be difficult to find peace.

For example, an individual might treat someone unfairly to gain something that was not rightfully theirs in order to be looked well upon by others. But deep down, the person may know what they did was wrong.

If we can’t gather up the courage to be honest with ourselves, we may continue to exhibit the same behaviors. Self-honesty is a trait that holds immense importance.

What’s True Will Continue to Exist

Nothing in the world is constant. Everything changes. However, for something to exist forever, it has to be true and authentic. You are what your core is. No matter how much you coat it with colors to please the world, you will always be what you are at the core. Your core is your truth.

No matter how much you coat it with colors to please the world, you will always be what you are at the core. Your core is your truth.

You can pretend to be things people expect you to be, but when you are honest with yourself, you will be proud of who you are. You will portray your core without being afraid of what people think of you.

This is because, at the end of the day, you can hide your truth from the world but not from yourself. Being true to yourself is important if you wish to be proud of who you are.

You Become More Fearless

When you are honest with yourself, you accept your weaknesses and flaws. You may know what some of those are. You may know what you are capable of and what you aren’t capable of. With enough self-knowledge, people’s judgments about you can become less important.

You may become more fearless, because when you know your capabilities, the world and the opinions of others can’t put you down. If someone tells you that you can’t do something which you know you can do, your morale will likely stay unaffected, enabling you to continue towards your goals fearlessly.

You Gain More Clarity

You will have better clarity about the things you want in life when you are completely honest with yourself. Your real identity is something only you know, and it is most often up to you to decide what your life goals are. People may dictate your priorities for you, but you can be honest about your needs, your wishes, and your priorities with yourself, at least. With more clarity, you may be able to put in more effort and dedication to achieve what you wish for.

Relationships Become Healthier

Honesty is the foundation of any relationship. No relationship can survive without honesty. If you fail to be honest with yourself, how can you ever be honest with anyone else? If you hide the truth from yourself, how can you expect to share it with anyone else? It’s nearly impossible to be honest with anyone as long as you aren’t honest with yourself.

To have a long-lasting and a healthy relationship, you must ensure that you are offering the other person the ‘true you.’ Relationships thrive when their foundations are based on two people who are honest with themselves and each other.

Life Becomes Beautiful

We strive for a positive public opinion because we have started to believe that we are what people think we are. We try to hide our reality from the world because we think it might disqualify us from the ‘in-crowd.’ When you are honest with yourself, you start owning your reality, and you stop hiding behind the public opinion. The life you were previously trying to hide from everyone starts feeling beautiful.

Being honest with yourself can make life easier, less complicated, and a lot more beautiful. You become less dependent on others and more dependent on yourself. You start loving yourself with all your flaws, and that’s the turning point toward contentment and inner peace.

Some people experience strong feelings of self-rejection that make it difficult to pursue or appreciate their true self. If you’re having a hard time practicing self-honesty, it can help to speak with a licensed and compassionate therapist.

In an interview from April 2018, James Comey, former director of the FBI, spoke about the difference between the language he used publicly as the director of the FBI and the way he speaks in his current book. He curses in the book because that’s how he thinks, he said. But when speaking with members of the media, he cleans up his language so it’s more socially acceptable.

Most people follow his form, watching themselves when they think they might be judged harshly for cursing and letting loose when they feel safer and more comfortable. As a therapist, I believe cursing helps connect people who are seeking help or working through issues. I have a bias towards this view, as I was taught by Dr. Albert Ellis, who, in my opinion, was the absolute best cursing therapist in the history of the profession. When I started studying with Al 40 years ago, I found it incredibly refreshing to hear him curse while explaining his theories of what he initially named Rational Emotive Therapy. (It was later renamed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy).

Cursing as a Tool to Connect

When people stub their toe, they don’t say, “Darn!” They usually swear. Studies have shown people who curse when in physical pain experience a diminished perception of pain. There’s no study I know of that shows this to be also true for emotional pain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the case. [fat_widget_right]

If we, as therapists, don’t use the language of the inner self, we risk not connecting as well. I firmly believe this. I have learned from my 40 years in practice that there are three things a therapist can do to help people feel safer:

• Model authenticity
• Dress casually (but not sloppily)
• Use real language, not a white-washed version of your speech. That means cursing, or the language people use vocally or internally, depending on the situation and who is within earshot.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting you curse at a person you are working with. Rather, I am speaking of cursing as a tool that can help forge alliances. Not everybody will appreciate this. Some people do not swear and may be offended. This is why, when I first use a curse word, I ask the person I’m working with if they find it offensive. If they find cursing offensive, I do my best to resist the urge. My goal is to relate to the person in the deepest way humanly possible so they can feel heard, known, and respected.

Another goal I have, which is in keeping with dressing casually, is modeling what it means to be my true self with the people I work with so they can feel comfortable being their true self with me. My true self is someone who curses for emphasis and relief. I also think it’s my right as a woman to be able to swear, since men have had the freedom to curse from time immemorial.

When people feel comfortable using language they would use with a close friend or family member, they may then feel encouraged enough to let other boundaries loosen up a bit. These boundaries may have kept them from disclosing something they felt was embarrassing or shameful, for example.

Another goal I have, which is in keeping with dressing casually, is modeling what it means to be my true self with the people I work with so they can feel comfortable being their true self with me.

Cursing is simply a way I show my allegiance with the person I’m working with. I am not a dispassionate, uninvolved therapist. I really care about the people I work with. When they have a problem, I passionately want to help them. Cursing helps me convey that intention. By cursing I also give them a cosmic permission slip to feel more passionate about their own life.

In addition, I show it’s safe and okay to feel angry sometimes. It’s even fine to express this anger. In my experience, cursing does not lead to violence. It may even prevent it, as unleashing an epithet may help release some emotional heat before it builds into a violent conflagration.

Many people, especially women, think they shouldn’t show or feel anger. When I model outrage at something and the world keeps spinning on its axis, they realize they can express the same outrage. Cursing is a way people can express a negative or heartfelt emotion without any major negative repercussions.

Part of therapy is helping people feel safe being who they are. All of us have rage. Some is conscious, some unconscious, but we all have it to differing degrees. Feeling our feelings, including anger, is acknowledged as one of the most important steps in accepting and working through those difficult emotions. You can’t heal what you don’t feel.

Cursing is just another way to connect with your feelings. It’s not the only way. But some people find it allows them freedom to express how deeply they feel about something. Once we access and own the depth of our emotion, we can then work more wisely with it.

References:

1. Gross, T. (Host). (2018, April 17). James Comey to ‘Fresh Air’: The FBI isn’t ‘on anybody’s side.’ [Radio broadcast episode]. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2018/04/17/602849276/james-comey-to-fresh-air-the-fbi-isnt-on-anybodys-side
2. Stephens, R., Atkins, J., & Kingston, A. (2009, August 5). Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport, 20(12), 1056-1060.
3. Stephens, R., & Clatworthy, A. (2006). Does swearing have an analgesic effect? Poster presentation at the British Psychological Society Psychobiology Section Annual Conference, 18–20 September 2006, Windermere.
4. Stephens, R., & Umland, C. (2011). Swearing as a response to pain–Effect of daily swearing frequency. Journal of Pain, 12(12), 1274–1281.
5. Stephens, R. (2013). Swearing-The language of life and death. The Psychologist, 26(9). Retrieved from https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-26/edition-9/swearing-language-life-and-death

I had a conversation with a friend the other day regarding authenticity—a value that I place close to my heart. It seems, in these times of “fake news” and the questioning of the integrity of many of the systems around us, the idea of living an authentic life is sometimes met with a shrug.

Our society is built around the façade of masking our true selves to please others, to build our “brands,” and to be the face of whatever role we are playing in that particular moment—parent, partner/spouse, worker, boss, coach, friend, neighbor, caregiver. No matter what is actually happening inside us or in the other pieces of our life, we are taught to compartmentalize each section in order to be successful.

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As a clinician, I am able to see the effects on those who have to put on these masks, to the detriment of their inner happiness. I see the toll it can take on those who feel pressured to act as if they are a certain way, feel a certain way, or believe a certain thing that isn’t a reflection of their true self.

It can be heartbreaking.

It hurts to see a spouse pretend she has been happy for years in a stagnant marriage because she couldn’t stand the idea of judgment from being vulnerable with peers or family members.

It can be devastating to watch someone realize their shallow friendships are the cause of a deep feeling of loneliness despite constantly being around people.

It is horrible to see someone’s creative energy drained by a workplace that expects a happy face and a butt in a chair regardless of their ideas and desire to better serve.

So how can we better connect with who we are—even when there is a role to play?

There is often a fear of being authentic, especially within relationships. From a young age, we are told to “just be ourselves” without any additional prompting of who we are or should be. So often, we try to figure out who we are based on who everyone around us is, and how they respond to us within a situation. We spend our adolescent years “trying on” different identities, and then just going with the pieces that are accepted by those around us.

So when we are “being ourselves,” we are actually often being the person that the world has molded us into, for better or for worse.

When you can put responsibilities and roles aside to spend time doing things that fill your cup, you have more energy to spend on those responsibilities and roles over the long term—and they are less likely to suck you dry.

As adults, we get sucked into our routines with career and family life, often to the detriment of our creative minds and physical bodies. We begin to identify with those roles, often forgetting about our true value systems and the ways our idealist younger selves wanted to impact the world.

When processing with people in therapy about self-care, it can be revealing to talk about that idealist younger self. What did they love to do? What kind of people did they enjoy being around? What did they want for their future self? How are they different from who they are now?

While we often think of self-care as sitting in front of Netflix or getting a manicure, the most impactful self-care is finding ways to get back to our true identity and being authentic about what that looks like.

In other words, our responsible adult selves are good at taking the fun out of things.

If we go back and revisit that younger self, we often can find pieces of our identity that we can bring back into the picture to give ourselves more joy.

For example:

• If you enjoyed creating or spent time just listening to music as a child, or wrote short stories for fun, those are things that could bring a note of authenticity back into your life. In taking time for yourself to create in this way, you can bring more enjoyment into your life.
• If you were an athlete, but now find yourself at a desk job, you may want to find ways to incorporate the sports that you loved. Even if you can no longer physically play those sports, coaching them—or finding another way to be involved—could help you to reconnect with who you are.

When you can put responsibilities and roles aside to spend time doing things that fill your cup, you have more energy to spend on those responsibilities and roles over the long term—and they are less likely to suck you dry.

Learning about who we truly are, what we enjoy, and what really brings us to life can make those self-care moments go so much further. Because if you’re going to take time away to focus on doing something for yourself, it should be something that truly brings you joy.

If you’ve lost touch with who you really are, meeting with a licensed therapist may help.

Tara Brach, PhD, clinical psychologist and peace activist, is one of the most widely respected teachers of Buddhist meditation and spiritual awakening. Her teachings, which blend Western psychology with Eastern spiritual practices, focus on careful attention to inner life and compassionate engagement with the world. The result is a distinctive voice in Western Buddhism that encourages people to mindfully approach freedom from suffering as individuals and societies.

The founder and senior teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC, Tara focuses on bringing practices of mindfulness to prisons and schools as well as issues of diversity, peace, and environmental sustainability. Tara teaches Buddhist meditation at several centers in the US and Canada, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, the Kripalu Center, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. She also helped create the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship. In addition to numerous articles, videos, and recorded talks, Tara is the author of the books Radical Acceptance, published in 2003 and True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart.

In an exclusive interview with CEO and founder of GoodTherapy.org, Noah Rubinstein, marriage and family therapist, Tara shares her inspiration for Radical Acceptance and True Refuge and discusses how Buddhist teachings have helped her as both an individual and mental health professional. [fat_widget_right]

For your new book, why the title True Refuge? [W]ho did you have in mind when you wrote it?

I love the language of True Refuge because it feels like this reality that each of us has this longing to be at home in our bodies, our hearts, with each other, and in the world. We’re seeking that sense of belonging. We come into this world, and there’s a lot of uncertainty. I think about William James, who wrote that every religion starts with the cry “help.” [O]n some level, we get we’re mortal, so something in us wants to find some way to be at peace. True Refuge refers to that experience where we’re not holding on to substitutes or numbing ourselves, we’re entering reality in a way that allows us to truly find a sense of harmony.

You were talking about different cries for help that cause people to look for refuge, and I think people would be interested to know what your cry for help was, how that brought you to this work, and influenced your awareness and growth.

Well, the cry for help that got me to write Radical Acceptance was this realization. I had it when I was camping with an older, wiser friend. But my friend said, “You know, I’ve learned to be my own best friend,” and I realized I was the furthest thing from that—I was at war with myself. I have discovered it’s probably the most pervasive suffering we Westerners have, sensing something’s wrong with us. That in some way we’re deficient. And writing Radical Acceptance was from what I was learning working with myself and others about how to trust our basic goodness, and stop being at war with the natural ways our egos express themselves.

The second was not long ago, when I got diagnosed with a genetic disorder that affects mobility and connective tissue. I went from being athletic and loving being outside, to not being able to swim anymore, to run, walk up inclines. I particularly remember one incident, when friends and family went to the beach without me because I couldn’t walk on sand, and it was one moment where I could feel the loss of everything I was loving, and there was that cry “Help, may I love this life no matter what? May I find refuge that can allow me to be with this world no matter what happens?” And that was the beginning of True Refuge, finding my way to a sense of being that is timeless, that doesn’t depend on being able to swim in the ocean.

True Refuge refers to that experience where we’re not holding on to substitutes or numbing ourselves, we’re entering reality in a way that allows us to truly find a sense of harmony.

I appreciate you telling that story about losing your mobility. I love that you walked away from this wanting to love life no matter what. [W]hen you talk about the heartache and loss people go through, how can anyone in those situations love their life no matter what? Is there a way to sum up how you do that?

I want to deepen the word “love.” The feeling is not joyful celebration in the beauty of life in that moment. It could be a feeling of the most profound heartbreaking compassion, like holding with infinite tenderness the pain and grief that’s here. [L]oving life no matter what doesn’t mean we don’t truly grieve. It means we stay open to that grieving process, and in that openness, we sense something timeless.

That’s what True Refuge is. It’s beyond our ego self, beyond the emotions. It’s that space of awakeness, tenderness, and openness that might be described as spirit. But the truth is, we lose everything, and we know that. We can celebrate the mystery that’s here, without having it stay the same in a way that keeps us secure.

I guess this makes me wonder how some of these issues are addressed in True Refuge.

[W]e all have different versions of feeling disconnected. And some people feel disconnection because their bodies are sick, there’s a sense of losing connection with living. And for some, the sense of what’s going on has to do with depression or anxiety, feeling disconnected because they’re caught in fear. So, how do we come back to a sense of connection?

[T]he book offers what I call “perennial teachings,” which you find in spiritual traditions that have to do with “Who are we really?” [H]ow do we go beyond that sense of a deficient self and realize more of that love and awareness that expresses our wholeness? And the book has three gateways to a feeling of wholeness, and they each include contemplative practices that help wake us up. And one of them I call “truth,” the gateway of presence, that we learn how to contact the present moment. [T]he second archetypal gateway is love, that we discover what allows us to feel loving connection with each other and our own aliveness. And the third gateway is awareness, which is formless, pure consciousness. It’s always here, but we get so caught in our plans and worries, we forget the stillness that’s aware of sensation. So, these three gateways have different trainings that help us wake up to them. They’re completely interdependent and very practical.

[I]n chapter one of Radical Acceptance, you describe your ambition to become wiser and free, and how when you would ask your teacher, “What else can I do?” it would lead to your teacher telling you to relax. And it makes sense that giving up on becoming enlightened can lead to enlightenment, but how does one become spiritually enlightened without trying?

I love that question because in spiritual communities, one of the deepest inquiries is “What does it mean to make a wise effort?” I went into spiritual life in a competitive, achievement-oriented context, and it took a while to loosen up on that. But it takes a sincere longing to be who we are. It catalyzes us and keeps us moving when it’s difficult, in contrast to the kind of striving that says, “Something’s wrong with me,” which never works.

I’ll share the story of the Buddha’s most devoted disciple, Ananda. Ananda worked strenuously at becoming enlightened. [A]fter the Buddha dies, there’s this council of enlightened monks planning to hold council, but Ananda is not allowed to come because he hasn’t been enlightened. So, he decides the night before he’s going to practice vigorously. But in spite of his efforts, he makes no progress because he’s striving. [B]efore dawn, he’s exhausted. He decides to let go and relax, and as he lies back, he becomes liberated.

[T]he moral of the story is not simply lying back and resting, because he had to spend decades training. [H]e was very awake in many ways, but the final step was to let go of striving. I think we commit to training our attention because neuroscience is telling us we have neuroplasticity. We can create fresh pathways in our brain that lead to peace, happiness, and freedom. [T]he ultimate realization comes when we relax back into what we already are, not when we try to be different.

[L]oving life no matter what doesn’t mean we don’t truly grieve. It means we stay open to that grieving process, and in that openness, we sense something timeless.

I’m wondering what you think needs to change socially, culturally, or internally that would encourage seekers and non-seekers to stop looking for redemption outside of themselves, to be okay with who they are?

[W]hen I do a workshop on Radical Acceptance, I say, “Well, what stops you from accepting yourself as you are?” The most common response is fear that if I accept myself, I’ll never change. In fact, maybe I’ll get worse, be stuck being a defective, deficient self, and never be happy. [T]here’s this belief I need to be different to be loved. I think for most of us, the healing work has to do with seeing the belief we’re carrying about ourselves that something’s wrong, and to hold that pain with compassion. And we start getting how many life moments we’ve been deprived of because we believed something was wrong. We start sensing who we are beyond that.

[I]t reminds me of what I love most about psychotherapy, the moment somebody shines their own light of self-compassion on part of themselves they used to not like, and how healing it is to get that from one’s self. [O]ne of my teachers, Dick Schwartz, has said if you put aside judgment and witness a part of yourself with curiosity, you’ll discover the part has a positive intention. [R]egardless of the damage the part is causing, it’s been trying to help. I’m wondering in your work going to these deep places with others, if you’ve found all parts are fundamentally good in that sense?

I think Dick is right. The most basic equipment of our survival system—fight, flight, freeze—is so we can flourish, even when the parts get twisted. So rather than putting up boundaries when we need to, we’re constantly defending.

[I]n Radical Acceptance, I told a story of one woman who had been sexually abused by her father, and as part of her therapy process, had a fantasy of being this young child in a closet calling for help, terrified, and needing protection. This fairy appeared and said, “I can’t right now take away the pain, but what I can do is help you not feel it until you’re able to re-digest it, and then respond in a way that’s helpful.” So she disconnected from her body, and ended up having an eating disorder and a hard time with intimacy, and remembering that story helped her realize her eating disorder and shutting people out were coping strategies that were the best she could do as a young child dealing with intolerable pain.

I feel recognizing the positive intention is an essential part of seeing the truth of how we respond to wounding, and instead of adding blame for the way we deal with it, holding it with compassion.

I’ve always been fascinated with the duality between being attached to something we love, and trying to find that detached place, in terms of the Buddhist way. I wonder if you have any thoughts about how we can love something so much and know it’s not permanent, that what we feel will change and be taken away.

It feels natural we are profoundly attached to the beings around us. I think of my son. I want things to be good for him, and when things aren’t going well, I get upset. [T]here’s attachment, and also a mindfulness that watches the attachment, that forgives it for being there. [I]t’s important to forgive, to have our hearts not hold onto blame for our humanness. And there are many moments when I can sense this light of spirit that shines through him, and something in me knows no matter what happens to his bodily being, there is this timeless connection and goodness that can’t die.