During a retreat entitled “Three Steps to Courage” Pema Chödrön spoke about the complexity of  escalating emotion; that we must learn to embrace our feelings with both patience and compassion. To engage them directly, beyond cursory awareness and deeply into their source.

But even for the most seasoned of practioners, this can prove a difficult challenge. Because, with each new experience we are carried closer to the sharpness of our own truth.

Likewise, it presumes a depth of integrity, an authenticity not typically known. One that invites a  continuous cycle, of letting go in order to receive.

“When Trungpa Rinpoche taught about fear,” Ani Pema reminds, “he very clearly said that the only way to experience fearlessness was to know the nature of fear, that fear was not something that we got rid of or that we cast out, but something that we became very intimate with, and came to know so well that the journey of knowing fear, moving closer to fear, was in fact the journey of courage, the journey of bravery.”

Though our thoughts, at times, may confuse – it is not without purpose. When we learn to welcome not as distraction, but rather – a means to discover….that is when we begin to know our freedom.

In peace, sweet friends…

Namaste ❣