Thank you Tara
Since I have been using your daily meditation and reading your books I have begun to look at the world with new eyes. I realise that I am a person with great love and compassion. The exercise is always good to check in with myself. Jen
I must stop, for I have been in the trance of unworthiness a long time. Just to stop it seems to be a big deal. To show myself care and loving kindness in my important and weighty context is next. That is so new! An unheard of possibility. In the past I would retreat from the weightiness. Now I can go forward. I can rejoice in myself and my weighty gifts. I can exercise them for my fulfillment and for the flourishing of others. This is new to me. I might need to stop and extricate myself from the trance of unworthiness many times. Then deliberately love myself and my neighbor. I’m eager to see what will happen!
I have struggled with transit unworthiness for years and still do at times because of your lesson it has brought more clarity & understanding of who I am!
Today wiping through my emails and deleting things I saw the word unworthiness, it caught my attention. I remembered once Oprah said something about what one of her students once said that caught her attention, something about being unable to receive, I have the exact story somewhere and will send if I find it. Feeling unworthy and being unable to receive are probably often related. So many things in my young life made me feel unworthy of anything good, I was not open to any good feelings about myself. The person I became to try and fit in, to get attention, to get away for some reason from who I was because she was not hard or tough enough to withstand what I was going through. I wasted so much time, did so many awful things that I am ashamed of, or might say what I let a false persona do. I am very disappointed in myself. I think the mindful meditation is helping, I can shut off those negative thoughts at times. It feels at times that the meditation is like building a muscle, like a bit in the mouth of a horse, we can control and recognize things better. People often pooh pooh mindful meditation, like it’s just another fad, often when they have not even tried it, I am working on it.
It seems sterile and country clubish (if that’s a word). I think self hate may come from being unwanted. I read that the obverse side of shame is the desire to be loved, I guess that’s what you’re getting at. When I think of my own abuse it didn’t come with soft music in the background, and it didn’t and doesn’t feel nearly as light and clean as the video.
Anonymous Anonymous, Marriage/Family Therapy, San afrancisco, CA, USAsays
I am in a raw space in my life right now. My sister won’t talk to me and it leaves me with intense feelings of unworthiness, feelings of being flawed and rejected.
I’m 75 years old, these feelings have been with me most of my life and now are intensified. I have meditated for over 25 years. I can’t concentrate in my meditation practice, my thoughts are all over the place and I don’t like myself much these days. My house is a mess! I think it is of utmost importance to love oneself, to be kind and compassionate so to go forward for myself and the world. It’s so difficult to be with what’s going on! Thank you Tara, you are encouraging that it is possible. I hope I can learn, even at this ripe age, how to love myself.
Thank you for a very inspiring personal story
I really enjoy listening to you – it is so soothing and calming. Sometimes it is very difficult to touch your own heart and accept yourself in the moment…
but then it is wonderful to find out that I am enough in my essence
This resonated so much with me. At 70, I have struggled all my life with anxiety and depression, and have become paralysed by my thoughts, addicted to the feelings and to avoidance, generally by ‘hiding’ in bed. I am currently in IFS therapy, but there is a blockage, for while i recognise the need for compassion for my wounded parts, I don’t feel strong enough or capable enough to offer core or spirit self to the work. I doubt my abilities, And inner critic is strong. And depression and fear are ruling me. I want to change. To live as the creative, loving child of God i was born to be. Tonight I sat in prayer ‘in the garden’ on Maundy Thursday, and found my focus for compassion was Judas. Then I opened this……A gift, a reminder of the work still to be done. Thank you. I look forward to hearing the next videos. And dare to hope that different can be, and I can open fully, surrender, to Spirit self to live from that place. Namaste.
I am only beginning to address a traumatic marriage and divorce, forty years ago! I never admitted I had been harmed so have carried the wounds in my subconscious all these years. I tho’t I could do anything, until then. Afterwards my subconscious denied having suffered. Now I am admitting the limitations those beliefs have caused, that there is still a ‘me’ in there who has those skills. That me wants to re-embrace those skills, the virtues I thought I had. This is the way.
I enjoy listening to your thoughts and ideas, thank you. They demonstrate for me the importance of allowing recognition and validation of my own needs. Yes, a softening. To allocate time and space for my own needs is vital.
I find it more challenging when the negative thoughts are accompanied by physical sensations, e.g. physically felt anxiety. Self talk is less effective.
Wow! I was shown how I tend to keep pushing myself beyond my natural boundaries, ignoring my body needs, allowing 🐒 to burn on & on … I see it as
an addiction that took off in childhood, mind spinning out of 3d reality around
me to maintain a level of sanity & control! Only now, at 74, it feels safe to do something about it & pay more attention to body needs! It’s a big one on Self love, I am grateful for seeing it clearly! 🙏💖
Leslie Gillman, Other, Woodland Hills, CA, USAsays
I noticed how unkindly I judge my body. I then went to the idea of acceptance and then quickly feared that by accepting I wouldn’t make the changes I feel I should make to improve my physicality which would then lead to acceptance. Ha! The mind works its machinations with such alacrity.
I found a softening and a sense of appreciation from within. Everything Tara said resonated with me. On one hand I know it but don’t practice it enough.
At first, I felt sad.. then became aware of feelings of injustice, and an impulse to accuse- unfairness! Then I noticed, helplessness to change others treatment of me, analyzing THEIR trauma and compassion for those that hurt me. The desire to help others as I bypass myself emerged. Self abandonment. The ol’ putting the cart before the horse syndrome😂 I also noticed how I go out of my way to be sure that others do not experience these “injustices” in my presence… wondering, is it out of my way to do this for myself? Could this be the path to “my way” ? Thank you Tara
I feel sad and disappointed in myself for not knowing better and learning better. I know that it’s taken me too long to get over severe trama I just seem to be caught in a really bad place when things go wrong. We are not allowed to blame or talk too much about the past as it serves no good purpose any longer. I’ve listened to so much good therapy from Gabor to Swartz to you Tara and I still struggle with kindness toward myself. I just never received it so I’m not familiar with it. Just been around too many people that believe in shadowing and mirroring and that therapy does not resonate in my heart and soul to create change. So I give up on
myself a lot. I’m intelligent, attractive, able but the underlying issue is my inability to free myself so far from myself. Age 59. Praying tho! 🙏🙏
I felt a sense of aloneness and a fear of the future. I recently lost a job and I can’t see the next steps on my path. But I have faith that a light will shine and show me at least the next small step.
Mary Silberstein, Nursing, Arroyo Grande, CA, USAsays
Beautifully said! As I age, I find regret closing in on me in certain areas…especially relationships. I live with a spouse that is very detailed oriented and is dealing with his own aging issues. These would be great courses for me. Thank you, Tara. You are such a compassionate, wise light in this difficult world.
Bringing kindness to the dark sides and to self-judgement makes me feel corresponding negative emotions less strong. And also body sensations like tightness become less. I want to try beeing kind to myself regularly. We are all humans, right? Different and imperfect. 🙂
I feel light and appreciate the affirmation of this little video for what I’m paying attention to right now. Her story named much of what I am experiencing: at 70, after years of therapy and a career as a hospital chaplain, I am like she was on the mountain… raw and FEELing the pain and unworthiness borne since 5 and processed for much of my adult life. A second naïveté! I feel hopeful for the work that’s to be done and am also looking forward to the second video.
I saw a wooden resigned younger part of myself just hanging back and getting by, believing my unworthiness and thinking I didn’t deserve belonging or other good things. That clear seeing of her brought sadness and so much compassion and tears. Thank you Tara. Your meditations are one of my main practices. Slowly I gain more contact with my heart, with compassion and the grieving that I couldn’t access for so long.
Colleen Goidel, Another Field, Hoboken, NJ, USAsays
When I brought kindness and self compassion into consciousness I still felt sad but I also felt a bit lighter. I am trying to love myself enough so that I can mother my grown daughter in the way she needs, without my emotional injuries getting in the way. It’s so hard but the only way for me to get out of the way of myself is to accept myself as I am. Thank you.
While I have read about and tried to practice mindfulness for a number of years now, for some reason I am struggling to practise it and to be kind to myself if what happens feels like failure to me. I am seeing a counsellor to explore this but it is a huge challenge. One thing different now – I stopped taking antidepressants almost a year ago. In my research, one issue is experiencing withdrawal syndrome going on for months which is not uncommon but is also not really recognized by the medical profession or pharmacists. The other thing – I grew up in a family which did not think emotions were good and learned to stifle them and passed this “skill” on. Then I took antidepressants off and on (mostly on) for years which dulled the emotions too. Now I am feeling the emotions and need to adapt to that. Hopefully with kindness over time??. I am even worried about making comments like this online, as I had a terrible experience with a company called BetterHelp which resulted in my distrust of anything online at a time when I truly needed support.
I loved this talk – I saw myself – in that for years I felt I couldn’t live true to myself and still be accepted – at work, in social situations etc. so a part of me that I love stayed buried and undervalued. I have turned the corner on this, but with each step there’s an old critical voice at the ready which I’m learning to gently challenge – “Can I be with this- address with kindness?”
Thank you. 🙏
Tara’s practice of tuning in to what’s happening put me in touch with feelings of sadness stemming from feelings of unworthiness. By bringing compassionate awareness to this I began to feel a deep sense of tenderness for myself.
Right now I feel some shame for falling to my addictions and guilt that I’m not doing enough as a father. When I try to sit with these feelings and bring compassion into myself I meet a wall of resistance telling me to just be better and I would not feel unworthy.
I noticed a great sadness at first & then I realised my breathing was changing. I began to breathly much more slowly & deeply & that was very comforting and I realised that I’ve been mostly breathing in a very unconscious shallow way lately due to a lot of loss and anxiety.
Tears came at the self-judgment and the greatest desire to accept myself (and ‘others’) just as I am. I have been working on self-compassion for a number of years, and extended a hand to myself then… feeling relief to invite in the ‘pattern’ that keeps the trance in place and just look at it, become more aware of its emptiness as a thought form – and that old denigration melted. I could embrace the one who was suffering and needed my love and understanding, and as I did, the old thought shifted into a higher value of love, appreciation and acceptance.
kathleen martin, Another Field, phoenix, AZ, USAsays
I enjoy Tara’s talks very much. I have always had difficulty with accepting happiness. I’m afraid something bad will happen if I accept joy, specifically that I will get sick. I’ve tried so hard to deal with this all my life, but this particular video really struck a chord. By saying to myself “Can I be with this?” somehow made a slight shift in how I felt. Thank you, Tara.
Whats Happening Now? Anxiety about completing my work by a deadline to meet expectations for myself and the students I teach. Worry about letting people down – feeling disappointed with myself – feeling not good enough – wishing I was better . Can I be with this – with kindness? I first felt a sense of relaxation and took a few deep breaths. But it did not take long to start thinking about the evidence and feedback that my initial worries and anxiety are well founded. However, it did cause me to consider that my expectations for myself are just too high – and that it doesn’t need to be perfect – its ok to be ordinary. I’ll be mindful of this today and see where it leads. But I still feel the anxiety and a self-critical voice in the background – clinging on, weighing me down.
I felt a softening. I thought I had worked through my unworthiness but something happened today that showed I still have more work to do. I am grateful for this video and look forward to viewing the rest. Thank you Tara.
I needed to get away from where I was because a feeling of pain began to make itself felt in my belly and almost in a trance I started to move away from the overwhelming surroundings and look for assistance where I knew I could find it.
Thank you Tara & NICABM. That’s a lovely simple exercise. I found that the second question softened my experience & the harsh unpleasant edge evaporated. It became “just a sensation”. Nice!
What’s happening with me right now? Fear and exhaustion.
Can I be with this with care and compassion? Yes and I’m afraid and I will call on the community of those who care for and support me (this includes myself).
Thank you Dr Brach. This was really helpful. I’ve been experiencing this trance of unworthiness for quite a long time and it feels like I can’t get out of its muddy quagmire. My husband says I’m intoxicated with it and can’t part with it as if it was some kind of lover, or a demon taking hold of my best part.
As I tried to offer kindness to my wounded self while watching the video, I felt something cracking open and weeping inside of me. The inner critic tried to hold me back and push me deeper into the quagmire but I resisted. It was hard, and I wasn’t sure I succeeded, but it was a first step. I recently lost my mother (after losing my father the year before) and since her death I refused to sit down and do some mindfulness exercises. My heart needed to be shut down, my mind paused on standby. But today, by choosing to open this video, I chose to step back into my true self, or at least tried to walk the path leading to my true self. It’s a long way, and it feels like I haven’t even started yet, but for a moment I felt good and reconciled with myself.
Thank you again,
Sacha Rosel
Thank you Tara
Since I have been using your daily meditation and reading your books I have begun to look at the world with new eyes. I realise that I am a person with great love and compassion. The exercise is always good to check in with myself. Jen
Asking myself if I can be with my feelings/thoughts with kindness is a key question I’ll start asking myself. Thanks so much.
I must stop, for I have been in the trance of unworthiness a long time. Just to stop it seems to be a big deal. To show myself care and loving kindness in my important and weighty context is next. That is so new! An unheard of possibility. In the past I would retreat from the weightiness. Now I can go forward. I can rejoice in myself and my weighty gifts. I can exercise them for my fulfillment and for the flourishing of others. This is new to me. I might need to stop and extricate myself from the trance of unworthiness many times. Then deliberately love myself and my neighbor. I’m eager to see what will happen!
I have struggled with transit unworthiness for years and still do at times because of your lesson it has brought more clarity & understanding of who I am!
Today wiping through my emails and deleting things I saw the word unworthiness, it caught my attention. I remembered once Oprah said something about what one of her students once said that caught her attention, something about being unable to receive, I have the exact story somewhere and will send if I find it. Feeling unworthy and being unable to receive are probably often related. So many things in my young life made me feel unworthy of anything good, I was not open to any good feelings about myself. The person I became to try and fit in, to get attention, to get away for some reason from who I was because she was not hard or tough enough to withstand what I was going through. I wasted so much time, did so many awful things that I am ashamed of, or might say what I let a false persona do. I am very disappointed in myself. I think the mindful meditation is helping, I can shut off those negative thoughts at times. It feels at times that the meditation is like building a muscle, like a bit in the mouth of a horse, we can control and recognize things better. People often pooh pooh mindful meditation, like it’s just another fad, often when they have not even tried it, I am working on it.
It seems sterile and country clubish (if that’s a word). I think self hate may come from being unwanted. I read that the obverse side of shame is the desire to be loved, I guess that’s what you’re getting at. When I think of my own abuse it didn’t come with soft music in the background, and it didn’t and doesn’t feel nearly as light and clean as the video.
I am finding it hard to summon the kindness and compassion required.
I am in a raw space in my life right now. My sister won’t talk to me and it leaves me with intense feelings of unworthiness, feelings of being flawed and rejected.
I’m 75 years old, these feelings have been with me most of my life and now are intensified. I have meditated for over 25 years. I can’t concentrate in my meditation practice, my thoughts are all over the place and I don’t like myself much these days. My house is a mess! I think it is of utmost importance to love oneself, to be kind and compassionate so to go forward for myself and the world. It’s so difficult to be with what’s going on! Thank you Tara, you are encouraging that it is possible. I hope I can learn, even at this ripe age, how to love myself.
The heavy feeling of sadness became lighter, almost instantly, when I brought kindness and care to the feeling.
~ With gratitude, Tara. Always. 💚
Thank you for a very inspiring personal story
I really enjoy listening to you – it is so soothing and calming. Sometimes it is very difficult to touch your own heart and accept yourself in the moment…
but then it is wonderful to find out that I am enough in my essence
This resonated so much with me. At 70, I have struggled all my life with anxiety and depression, and have become paralysed by my thoughts, addicted to the feelings and to avoidance, generally by ‘hiding’ in bed. I am currently in IFS therapy, but there is a blockage, for while i recognise the need for compassion for my wounded parts, I don’t feel strong enough or capable enough to offer core or spirit self to the work. I doubt my abilities, And inner critic is strong. And depression and fear are ruling me. I want to change. To live as the creative, loving child of God i was born to be. Tonight I sat in prayer ‘in the garden’ on Maundy Thursday, and found my focus for compassion was Judas. Then I opened this……A gift, a reminder of the work still to be done. Thank you. I look forward to hearing the next videos. And dare to hope that different can be, and I can open fully, surrender, to Spirit self to live from that place. Namaste.
I am only beginning to address a traumatic marriage and divorce, forty years ago! I never admitted I had been harmed so have carried the wounds in my subconscious all these years. I tho’t I could do anything, until then. Afterwards my subconscious denied having suffered. Now I am admitting the limitations those beliefs have caused, that there is still a ‘me’ in there who has those skills. That me wants to re-embrace those skills, the virtues I thought I had. This is the way.
I cried
I found some reasons for my feelings that I hadn’t thought of…
I realised how hard I was being on myself. Listening to you, brought softness to my inner critic and hostile self judgement.
I enjoy listening to your thoughts and ideas, thank you. They demonstrate for me the importance of allowing recognition and validation of my own needs. Yes, a softening. To allocate time and space for my own needs is vital.
I felt a bit of gentleness toward myself for a moment only.
I find it more challenging when the negative thoughts are accompanied by physical sensations, e.g. physically felt anxiety. Self talk is less effective.
I agree. Physical sensations, somatic feelings, make it hard to show self compassion.
Its good to have a direct look on the suffering.
Kindness let melt the very strong acing.
Thanks johanna
Your beautiful work means so much to me in all aspect of my life-both professional and personal. I am ever grateful. .
Wow! I was shown how I tend to keep pushing myself beyond my natural boundaries, ignoring my body needs, allowing 🐒 to burn on & on … I see it as
an addiction that took off in childhood, mind spinning out of 3d reality around
me to maintain a level of sanity & control! Only now, at 74, it feels safe to do something about it & pay more attention to body needs! It’s a big one on Self love, I am grateful for seeing it clearly! 🙏💖
Thank you for sharing your age and story. I am 77 and feel unworthy for not having sorted myself by now. 🙏
I noticed how unkindly I judge my body. I then went to the idea of acceptance and then quickly feared that by accepting I wouldn’t make the changes I feel I should make to improve my physicality which would then lead to acceptance. Ha! The mind works its machinations with such alacrity.
I found a softening and a sense of appreciation from within. Everything Tara said resonated with me. On one hand I know it but don’t practice it enough.
Thank you Tara.
At first, I felt sad.. then became aware of feelings of injustice, and an impulse to accuse- unfairness! Then I noticed, helplessness to change others treatment of me, analyzing THEIR trauma and compassion for those that hurt me. The desire to help others as I bypass myself emerged. Self abandonment. The ol’ putting the cart before the horse syndrome😂 I also noticed how I go out of my way to be sure that others do not experience these “injustices” in my presence… wondering, is it out of my way to do this for myself? Could this be the path to “my way” ? Thank you Tara
I feel sad and disappointed in myself for not knowing better and learning better. I know that it’s taken me too long to get over severe trama I just seem to be caught in a really bad place when things go wrong. We are not allowed to blame or talk too much about the past as it serves no good purpose any longer. I’ve listened to so much good therapy from Gabor to Swartz to you Tara and I still struggle with kindness toward myself. I just never received it so I’m not familiar with it. Just been around too many people that believe in shadowing and mirroring and that therapy does not resonate in my heart and soul to create change. So I give up on
myself a lot. I’m intelligent, attractive, able but the underlying issue is my inability to free myself so far from myself. Age 59. Praying tho! 🙏🙏
It’s interesting, I find it much easier to have compassion for others than I do for myself. That bugger inner voice!
I felt a sense of aloneness and a fear of the future. I recently lost a job and I can’t see the next steps on my path. But I have faith that a light will shine and show me at least the next small step.
Beautifully said! As I age, I find regret closing in on me in certain areas…especially relationships. I live with a spouse that is very detailed oriented and is dealing with his own aging issues. These would be great courses for me. Thank you, Tara. You are such a compassionate, wise light in this difficult world.
Bringing kindness to the dark sides and to self-judgement makes me feel corresponding negative emotions less strong. And also body sensations like tightness become less. I want to try beeing kind to myself regularly. We are all humans, right? Different and imperfect. 🙂
I feel light and appreciate the affirmation of this little video for what I’m paying attention to right now. Her story named much of what I am experiencing: at 70, after years of therapy and a career as a hospital chaplain, I am like she was on the mountain… raw and FEELing the pain and unworthiness borne since 5 and processed for much of my adult life. A second naïveté! I feel hopeful for the work that’s to be done and am also looking forward to the second video.
I saw a wooden resigned younger part of myself just hanging back and getting by, believing my unworthiness and thinking I didn’t deserve belonging or other good things. That clear seeing of her brought sadness and so much compassion and tears. Thank you Tara. Your meditations are one of my main practices. Slowly I gain more contact with my heart, with compassion and the grieving that I couldn’t access for so long.
When I brought kindness and self compassion into consciousness I still felt sad but I also felt a bit lighter. I am trying to love myself enough so that I can mother my grown daughter in the way she needs, without my emotional injuries getting in the way. It’s so hard but the only way for me to get out of the way of myself is to accept myself as I am. Thank you.
I felt a relaxation in my body. I sighed. I thought maybe I CAN help myself, care for myself.
Sadness, and looking , separating, I found it hard to shed kindness, I was engulfed. Though there wasn’t enough time, so will try again another time.
While I have read about and tried to practice mindfulness for a number of years now, for some reason I am struggling to practise it and to be kind to myself if what happens feels like failure to me. I am seeing a counsellor to explore this but it is a huge challenge. One thing different now – I stopped taking antidepressants almost a year ago. In my research, one issue is experiencing withdrawal syndrome going on for months which is not uncommon but is also not really recognized by the medical profession or pharmacists. The other thing – I grew up in a family which did not think emotions were good and learned to stifle them and passed this “skill” on. Then I took antidepressants off and on (mostly on) for years which dulled the emotions too. Now I am feeling the emotions and need to adapt to that. Hopefully with kindness over time??. I am even worried about making comments like this online, as I had a terrible experience with a company called BetterHelp which resulted in my distrust of anything online at a time when I truly needed support.
It was a struggle to not judge myself. And I couldn’t find the kindness toward myself.
I loved this talk – I saw myself – in that for years I felt I couldn’t live true to myself and still be accepted – at work, in social situations etc. so a part of me that I love stayed buried and undervalued. I have turned the corner on this, but with each step there’s an old critical voice at the ready which I’m learning to gently challenge – “Can I be with this- address with kindness?”
Thank you. 🙏
Tara’s practice of tuning in to what’s happening put me in touch with feelings of sadness stemming from feelings of unworthiness. By bringing compassionate awareness to this I began to feel a deep sense of tenderness for myself.
I became aware of a harsh and very critical voice that I was unaware of. MW
I felt a tightness in my jaw and chest, like something was trapped there.
Right now I feel some shame for falling to my addictions and guilt that I’m not doing enough as a father. When I try to sit with these feelings and bring compassion into myself I meet a wall of resistance telling me to just be better and I would not feel unworthy.
I noticed a great sadness at first & then I realised my breathing was changing. I began to breathly much more slowly & deeply & that was very comforting and I realised that I’ve been mostly breathing in a very unconscious shallow way lately due to a lot of loss and anxiety.
Tears came at the self-judgment and the greatest desire to accept myself (and ‘others’) just as I am. I have been working on self-compassion for a number of years, and extended a hand to myself then… feeling relief to invite in the ‘pattern’ that keeps the trance in place and just look at it, become more aware of its emptiness as a thought form – and that old denigration melted. I could embrace the one who was suffering and needed my love and understanding, and as I did, the old thought shifted into a higher value of love, appreciation and acceptance.
I enjoy Tara’s talks very much. I have always had difficulty with accepting happiness. I’m afraid something bad will happen if I accept joy, specifically that I will get sick. I’ve tried so hard to deal with this all my life, but this particular video really struck a chord. By saying to myself “Can I be with this?” somehow made a slight shift in how I felt. Thank you, Tara.
I felt a lightness. I felt my love.
Thank you. Namaste 🙏
I felt sad and anxious – a feeling of pain in my heart and belly as I realized that I feel ashamed of my feelings
Whats Happening Now? Anxiety about completing my work by a deadline to meet expectations for myself and the students I teach. Worry about letting people down – feeling disappointed with myself – feeling not good enough – wishing I was better . Can I be with this – with kindness? I first felt a sense of relaxation and took a few deep breaths. But it did not take long to start thinking about the evidence and feedback that my initial worries and anxiety are well founded. However, it did cause me to consider that my expectations for myself are just too high – and that it doesn’t need to be perfect – its ok to be ordinary. I’ll be mindful of this today and see where it leads. But I still feel the anxiety and a self-critical voice in the background – clinging on, weighing me down.
I cried and felt resistance to sitting with the suffering. Then I felt a light relief.
Something inside me just melted, and I cried and cried and cried and fear became self-confidence, just a little bit of trust that dwarfed the fear
I felt a softening. I thought I had worked through my unworthiness but something happened today that showed I still have more work to do. I am grateful for this video and look forward to viewing the rest. Thank you Tara.
I needed to get away from where I was because a feeling of pain began to make itself felt in my belly and almost in a trance I started to move away from the overwhelming surroundings and look for assistance where I knew I could find it.
Thank you Tara & NICABM. That’s a lovely simple exercise. I found that the second question softened my experience & the harsh unpleasant edge evaporated. It became “just a sensation”. Nice!
What’s happening with me right now? Fear and exhaustion.
Can I be with this with care and compassion? Yes and I’m afraid and I will call on the community of those who care for and support me (this includes myself).
Thank you Dr Brach. This was really helpful. I’ve been experiencing this trance of unworthiness for quite a long time and it feels like I can’t get out of its muddy quagmire. My husband says I’m intoxicated with it and can’t part with it as if it was some kind of lover, or a demon taking hold of my best part.
As I tried to offer kindness to my wounded self while watching the video, I felt something cracking open and weeping inside of me. The inner critic tried to hold me back and push me deeper into the quagmire but I resisted. It was hard, and I wasn’t sure I succeeded, but it was a first step. I recently lost my mother (after losing my father the year before) and since her death I refused to sit down and do some mindfulness exercises. My heart needed to be shut down, my mind paused on standby. But today, by choosing to open this video, I chose to step back into my true self, or at least tried to walk the path leading to my true self. It’s a long way, and it feels like I haven’t even started yet, but for a moment I felt good and reconciled with myself.
Thank you again,
Sacha Rosel