Transcript of SI class with Aaron
March 16, 2005

Barbara: Find a comfortable position, back erect, body relaxed. If there's any area of tension, like the shoulders or back, shake it a bit. Move the neck around. Relax the body.

Breathing in; breathing out.

(Pause)

Like that proverbial onion with all its layers, as we look into the body we find layers and layers of tension. To think we have to get rid of the tension will just create more tension. But the tensionless is within each of us, tensionless pure awareness.

Allow any tension just to float there, with gentle awareness. We'll sit like this for a few minutes. Then I, Barbara, am going to figuratively leave and Aaron going to come in.

(Pause)
(Tape off and on)

Aaron: Good evening. My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. As you sit here, there will be small physical discomforts, an occasional thought, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. As we discussed last week, these are all catalysts, and you have a response to them, habitual places where you go when something delights or disturbs you. We're going to do an experiment here if M will go and stand by the light switch. I ask you all to close your eyes, just continuing to meditate. As you can guess, the light is going to go on. You know that it's going to go on. It's not anything harmful or really unpleasant, although it may feel bright.

I want you to watch carefully and see what happens when the light goes on. Is there judging mind? Does the belly tighten? What happens in the mind and the body when the light goes on?

Then, as a second step, how do the heart and mind relate to that particular movement? If there's judgment, is there also a contraction around the judgment? If the belly tightens, is there space for the belly just to be there tight until it loosens? There's no right or wrong answer here, so just watch.

(Long pause; light exercise was done several times)

Here's another one that some of you have done with me often. I'm going to shout, just one loud shout, not in anger. There's nothing to be alarmed about. But certainly the suddenness of the loud voice will trigger something. Just watch it. Where do you go with that sudden surprise sound? (Shouts "Hey")

(Pause)

Instead of starting tonight with a long talk, I'm going to pause here. I want some feedback from you about this brief exercise and also thoughts about last week's class, and then I will talk.

How was that for you? Where did you go when the lights went off?

Q: Funny you should say, "Where did you go?" When the lights went on, I went into my head at my eyes, very aware of change! Change! When you yelled, I found myself going into my chest. There was a certain amount of shock factor with the yell.

Aaron: And what was the response to those subtle movements?

Q: I would have to say, a bit of adrenaline when you yelled.

Aaron: But what was the response to that rush of adrenaline? First came the adrenaline rush, contracted, moving into the chest or moving into the head, and then what? Was there judgment?

Q: I was surprised that I reacted that way.

Aaron: Surprised there was contraction? Yes, we have expectations and surprise is a low-key judgment. Were you able to make space for that judgment rather than contracting around it as a second object? Yes, wonderful. This is the point I want to make. When there's a yell, the body contracts. The lights go on and the body contracts. The contraction may be in the head, chest, or elsewhere. Each of you will have habitual places you go. This is the relative habit energy. Can there be compassion for that habit energy, so that you don't move further into a self, further separating from the heart, compounding one conditioned movement of body and mind after another after another?

Q: When you mentioned the knee jerking, I experienced a very similar experience when the doctor has the little rubber mallet, just before he hits your knee. I was waiting for something to happen, as when the doctor hits your knee with the little rubber mallet.

Aaron: We should do this exercise suggesting we'll turn the light on and NOT turn the light on! Keep you all just sitting here, waiting—"Is the light going on?" Expectation; tension! It doesn't matter what the original tension is. Somebody backs their car into you, not a serious accident, just denting your car. You're walking outside and suddenly there's a downpour and you're drenched. Somebody is angry at you. The phone is ringing as you come in the house and as you get to it, it stops. Each of these are triggers. The habit energy will respond to these triggers. You will notice a related reaction. For some people it's judging. For some it's withdrawal. These are just two examples.

I'm not suggesting that you cannot slowly change the reaction to the triggers, but you can't do it by deciding, "Now I'm going to change this." Rather, you open your heart and realize, "These are just triggers." When they bang into your car, you don't run out screaming with an axe in your hand. When the phone rings and you don't get to it in time, you don't curse and stomp up and down for 15 minutes saying, "Who was it? What was it about?" You just recognize there's some tension. You would like to have gotten that phone call. Maybe you're expecting an important phone call. There it was—or maybe; maybe it was a wrong number. Then you have the opportunity to practice, literally to let go.

To let go, you have to see the holding reaction and what you're holding on to. You can't let go if you don't know you're holding on or what is held. So you watch the habit energy, watch the contraction, and then remind yourself of the possibility of moving into more spaciousness with it. May I hear from others?

Q: I noticed the second time the light came on, my reaction was very different than the first time. Did anybody else experience that?

Aaron: Did you? (yes) Most of you had the same reaction.

Q: … I experienced resistance the second time, more of a holding that was not there the first time.

Aaron: So it was a different reaction. Watching you, it seemed many of you had subtly different reactions, but perhaps not felt as so different. Again, I am not so concerned about the reaction, what it was the first time or the second time. We're simply using these as a way to see the reaction to the trigger. I would not wish to walk around and pour water on your head; turning a light on is much easier on all of us. But giving you some kind of catalyst is vital, so you can watch were you go, and more important, what do you do with where you have gone. That second part is the vital one. The first part is important only because you cannot ask, "What do I do with where I've gone?" if you don't know you've gone anywhere. So you have to be aware of the contraction or the movement into the belly or chest or the head, and then see how you relate to that?

Most of you have done the practice with me where 2 people sit side by side and one pushes the other. It's the same practice, experiencing a gentle push of a light, sound, or a hand. Where do you go? And how do you relate to that tension? Can there be softness and space with that tension? This is what releases karma. You bring a different attitude to the experience. If there's a push, followed by tension, and then a second tension with the thought, "I shouldn't react," you shut yourself off from yourself. But when you acknowledge "reaction, unpleasant, tension," then you can begin to be intimate with both the tension and whatever may lie beyond the tension. Feeling helpless, feeling pushed, feeling abused in some way, feeling disregarded.

What I want you to see is the moving into thoughts about it, such as, "I ought to control it," or " I shouldn't react in this way," that kind of thought. Can you see that this is a way of avoiding being intimate with the experience of unpleasantness and tension?

Let's try this. Find partners please…one threesome, that's fine.

Face one another, naming Person A and Person B; decide who will take which role. B will receive in the beginning, and A will push. B, close your eyes. A, push firmly enough to be felt but not so hard as to bowl the person over. (Instruction for threesome.)

Push against the shoulder, the forehead, the chest. Leave some time in between; don't just keep pushing. Push and then release. Push more firmly. Of course there's going to be a reaction to being pushed. Slow down a bit, please… Not so fast…

Of course there will be a reaction. That there is a reaction is not a problem. What do mind and body do with the fact that there is a reaction? Can there not be tension around the reaction, but if there is, can there not be tension around the tension around the reaction? At what point does it end?

(Exercise)

And now, shift, the B's push, the A's close their eyes and receive the push. I'd like to remind you that in the act of pushing, the pusher also must be mindful. What happens within you when you push? What comes up? …

(Exercise)

Aaron: It was only a slightly different experience than the light. For some of you, the light or my shout may have had a stronger effect, for some of you, the push. Could you see yourself going somewhere with the push, and how did you respond to that going somewhere? This is not about controlling the going somewhere. It is about making space for it, about not building a self around it, not building stories around it, and not personalizing it with an, "Oh, I can't do this. What's wrong with me?" Anybody who is pushed has some tension. This is the human experience. However, there's a vast difference between going back to your childhood when the school-ground bully beat you up, and building on that old conditioning, or simply knowing, "In this moment, I am being pushed and it is unpleasant."

When you move into self-judgment about the experience and cannot open your heart to the discomfort of being pushed, then you also cannot open your heart to that childhood experience. There is a pull to increasing levels of control and closure. You are not able to be intimate with your experience. So many of you say, "Aaron, I feel so apart from others, so lost, so alienated, so separate, so lonely." Yes. If you're separate from yourself, how can you be close to anything else?

So we investigate the process by which you may more deeply connect with yourself, may become compassionately intimate with your experience without building a self and stories about that experience.

Would you share some of your experience with us, please?

Q: At first, my habit energy was to feel a little anger. My children push me all day long, and so that's my habit response. After the first push, I was completely free to enjoy the rest of them, and it became like a game. We made it interesting with little jiggles and trying to make each other laugh. I enjoyed the human touch.

New Q: On my part, it was a lot like playing with a very gentle friend.

Aaron: Others?

New Q: With the light, there was just light. With your yell, there was a complete body contraction and adrenaline, and then it was OK.

Aaron: How about with the pushing?

Q: Just pushing, because I didn't feel threatened.

Aaron: We provide these different kinds of catalyst because no one of you will respond the same to any one catalyst. Some of you were more shocked by the light, some by the push, some by the shout. The important thing was to give you something that caught you, not just light, not just a push, but something that caught you so you could investigate the reaction to it. As I said, I would not choose to splash water on you all, although that would bring a reaction!

New Q: I had 2 people pushing on me. One thing I noticed was how different I reacted to each person. And the other thing I noticed was, I was judging how well I could flow with being pushed and I judged myself when I noticed reaction to one of the persons.

Aaron: Were you then able to shift your attention to that judgment, to feel the judgment as the primary object and how you were relating to judgment?

Q: In the moment, I didn't, but after you spoke about having compassion for that habit energy, then I softened and it was okay.

Aaron: When you softened around the judgment, was there a shift in the way that pushing was experienced?

Q: A little, yea, yea.

Aaron: I would think so. This is why I want you to see the whole chain of response. When you can soften and be fully present with what's happening in the moment, such as the judgment, not contracting around the judgment but spacious with it, then you find there's more spaciousness with the push or the light or the angry coworker, or the sudden rainstorm that's drenched you. It's just water. It's just anger. It's just pushing.

When you hold that space, you find you can be in the moment, not building on old stories and old conditioning. When you don't hold the space, the old conditioning is more active. To hold the space means you are in the moment, and thusly able also to observe the old conditioning as an object, not to become lost in it.

It's a wonderful process to watch, even in the simplest situation. Barbara was walking her dog several days ago and the dirt road in front of her house was very muddy. At first she was trying to step from high place to high place, and she was looking at the dog's paws too, which were also getting quite muddy. The road is half a mile long down to the corner. By the time she reached the end, her shoes were just coated with mud. The dog was muddy up to his belly. All the way down there was contraction, thinking, "We can avoid the mud," and pulling the dog to her, stepping so carefully. At the far corner, she stopped, she breathed, and she acknowledged, "I don't want this mud, but I've got it." She was aware of tension. There were no stories such as, "Be a good girl and stay clean." There was a story about how hard it would be to get herself and especially the dog clean. She noted it and let it go, came back to the present. On the way back, she just splashed through the mud puddles with delight. There was no problem. It was not that she felt, "I'm already muddy, it doesn't matter," she got much more muddy splashing. But it was fun. She became a 6-year-old splashing through the puddles. And then she came home, changed her clothes and washed off the dog. No problem!

Think about the way you each do this; is there a tension of "Got to hold it this way, can't let it be that way." Sometimes there's the voice of the parent saying, "No, no, don't walk in the puddles." Whatever statement presents itself. "Don't be late. Don't hurry. Don't eat too fast. Don't eat too slow. Clean up your plate. Don't eat all the food on your plate; you'll get fat." The story that you had to be the good one, you had to get everything right to be the helper, the one who took care of everything, the one everybody could rely upon, or the one everyone could blame, the one who always got it wrong. And what do you do now in your life with that story? It comes up in a thousand ways every day. What were the stories you heard? How are they influencing your life now?

To take it a step further, are you living your life in a way as to try to keep all those stories quiet? This is very important. The parent who said, "You're just not smart enough. You don't get it." And now you've felt you need to get everything right, to disprove the story. There's so much tension.

See if there is a secondary reaction that comes, that building of a self who's going to be safe. And then the aversion to the reality that you can't stay safe no matter what you do. If it's raining, you're going to get wet. If it's muddy, you're going to get dirt on your feet. You can't stay safe. You can't control the conditions. What does it mean to release that grasping, to see the fear and come back to the fearless? It's really a release of the self who thinks that he or she CAN control. Then you come to that place where you are just willing to be with things as they are.

Barbara was told nice little girls don't get too dirty. Keep your feet clean, keep your clothes clean. When that old story comes up, there's a feeling of shame in it. There's a moment when she came in the house muddy and the mother just looked and said, "Go change your clothes." Disapproval. Everybody wants approval. Everybody wants love. Everybody wants to be successful, to be appreciated, and so forth. Consider all of those tens of thousands of small childhood incidents. I'm not talking about major abuse or trauma, I'm talking about small childhood incidents that conditioned you. As a part of that conditioning, there is the reflex not to allow yourself to be intimate with your experience, because if you're intimate you come up with those, they may not even be full-fledged memories, it's more an energy in the body that remembers than a thought in the mind. The body itself, at a cellular level, remembers that feeling of embarrassment or discomfort. Then, to get away from it, you avoid being intimate with your experience and acknowledging, "Right now I don't like this. Right now there's anger, or there's greed, or there's shame, or there's jealousy. I might not be fully in control. I don't like this." Then you separate from yourself.

Barbara was speaking last week about her discovery that she reads and writes as a way of moving away from herself, and that the energies behind the shift are not traumatic energies at all. There is only a subtle feeling of dis-ease, a bit of hollowness, the "What next? What can I do to keep the comfort coming? What can I do to keep the stroking coming?" I don't mean "stroking" on a physical level, but the stroking energy of others, to feel appreciated and loved. Think of it as a moment of hollowness; each of you experience it. It is that moment when you ask, "What next? What will I put in this space?"

Some of you have learned to be "good meditators." You're doing meditation, not being meditation. It is a way to deal with discomfort, and yet it involves separation from some aspects of experience. What does it mean to be fully present with yourself with so much spaciousness that no object becomes compounded on other objects? There is just this unpleasant experience, this sleet on your face, this mud on your feet, this angry look. Just that. But the only way you can get there is to look deeply at the habit energy around those contractions, the way that you step out of the mind and body.

Speaking of the way you were with the ice cube, the individual experience is probably very reflective of your individual experience with any kind of discomfort, physical or emotional. What does it point out to you? Are there some others of you who would like to share?

Some sharing, not recorded. Then Aaron begins to read something that Barbara wrote.

Aaron: I'm using Barbara's eyes. Interestingly, I am not used to reading English. I am finding myself going through what a young child might go through trying to recognize the letters, needing to use Barbara's processes to read, because usually Barbara is the one who reads. I'm just watching the phenomena. I read from her notes.

"What might allow you to go deeper with your heart into that experience? Look at this with little irritations with things, and with the people around you in the coming two weeks. Watch it with little body discomfort, and with a mind that's restless or jumping around. What would allow you to go deeper into this particular uncomfortable experience without personalizing it and building a story or a self?

So again, we would like to hear your reflections.

Q: M and I talked after and we both had the thought, when we were being pushed, of just going all the way back flat out. It cracked me up. But I thought it was interesting that we both had that reaction.

Aaron: Do you understand it's not whether you sit up with a push or fall back with a push that is significant? What motivates that sitting up? Does it come from the one who has to be strong? From the one who is going to surrender? It can come from a place of fear or of love.

If it were only of fear or of love, it would be easy, like a dial. Red, fear, don't go there. Green, love, yes, we'll go that way. What's confusing is that they come together, so that you have to learn to discern what movements come from a place that is more fully grounded in love, even when there is fear present, and to stay connected with the love without denying the fear.

Thank you. Others?

Q: I remember when we did a tai chi exercise. It was in this class or a previous class. I found myself (tonight) doing that back/forth (push hands), that we were taught, to receive energy and give energy, and receive energy and give energy.

Aaron: Yes, I understand. And how was that? Did you find you were able to be more spacious in that way? Because to do the pushing hands exercise, you must be present. You are not reactive, you are responsive.

Q: I was able to give and mostly to receive.

Aaron: So there was more space as you were pushed. Did others experience that? When you're more present, the pushing becomes a game. It's just touch.

Q: In the beginning, I was being pushed a lot, and I felt annoyed and like I was being pushed around. And then you said to slow down in the pushing. And when I had that space and could come back to my center, I really enjoyed it. It felt good being pushed.

Aaron: I'm delighted to hear that, especially because it emphasizes a certain point. This is the bringing together of the relative and ultimate. When the pushing is so constant, it can become overwhelming and you lose the ultimate experience. However, it's not helpful to simply move into a deep out-of-body experience so that you're not experiencing the body being pushed. Then you're not present. But you were able to bring it together when there was space, to hold the relative and the ultimate. That's just what we're trying to teach you. Not to teach you how to do it, but to teach you to recognize your ability to do it. Thank you.

Others?

Q: I felt like I was building a wall to protect myself. But then I noticed that and laughed at it and it was okay. But that is more difficult in emotional situations because I don't want to not build a wall.

Aaron: But building a wall in those situations only seems to keep you safe; truly it confines you. Many years ago we did a guided meditation inviting people to imagine themselves coming out onto a deserted, lovely beach in the early morning. Then some teenagers came and played their radio. There were large panels lying on the beach, some kind of old scaffolding, 4x8 sheets of plywood and the supports to stand them upright. Put a piece of plywood here, to keep the sound out.

Then some children come. They're running, digging with shovels and playing with a ball, splashing sand on you. Put another piece of plywood up. You can still see ahead to the ocean and back to the dunes. Then some dogs come running down the beach; they're stepping on your blanket. Put another one up. Three sides are closed but you can still see the ocean. The wind is blowing hard, it's blowing in from the ocean. Put another one up. It's too cold. Now with that fourth side closed, the sun is too hot. Put one over the top. Great, now you are safe! No children, no teenagers, no dogs, no sun, no wind, and you're closed in completely. But why are you sitting on the beach? Why not just sit in a dark room? Just look at the ways you do this.

The important thing is to begin to recognize that you do it and you don't have to do it, that so much of it is habit energy. Even when the emotions are difficult, you don't have to build a wall. What options are there? The more you can come into an intimacy with your own experience, which might be of fear or sadness or helplessness, or simply of body tension, without any name to it, just tight in the belly, the more you can allow yourself to be present with what has arisen. Then there is less need reactively to build a wall. The habit energy to build the wall starts to dissolve.

Thank you. I'm going to close here, and have Barbara lead you in the exercise we mentioned last week. Let us just close.

(tape off and on)
(Pause)

I want to describe this exercise. Let's see, we've got (counting)… (decision to do 2 groups). One person standing in the center, people in front and people behind, The center person leans forward, knees straight; close your eyes and let go. Trust that the people in front of you are going to catch you. They'll ease you back up and rock you gently backwards until you're off balance again and fall backwards. Try to keep the body straight, not to bend forward and sit backwards, but just keep the body straight, rocking forward, backwards and forward.

It's really a very enjoyable experience. What we want you to do is watch the tension that comes up, both as you're the one being rocked, and as you're the catcher. A lot of tension comes up for the catchers, concerned they will drop this person, but there will be at least 2 of you on each side, usually 3, so you'll be fine.

Exercise for half hour. Everyone has a turn in the center.

(Pause)
So, anybody who would like to share anything about that?

Q: It felt really good to give up control and just have fun and let go. No more worries.

(Pause)
Aaron is saying, what may it mean to let go like that in our lives? To trust the natural supports we have around us? Others?

Q: When you mentioned this two weeks ago, I was glad we didn't have time to do it. When you mentioned it this week, I was immediately wishing I had skipped class.

(Pause)
I noticed that some people did skip class, and I wondered if that that was why! How was it when you actually came to it?

Q: It was easier than I thought. I think everyone in the room found that, it's just easier and fun once you let go. We were talking about being at a pajama party and the things we used to do as children.

(Pause)
Others?

Q: For me, there seems to be a story about not trusting others. And that story came up when this exercise was suggested. A lot of fear, and in the anticipation of it, contraction. When I did it, I could let go and enjoy it. But now I see that the same story comes up again, and also see that the story is just a conditioned form of reaction.

(Pause)
It's just a story. (Q: Yes.) I think the whole feeling of not losing control, being upright, not being helpless, is a major theme for most of us as young ones. Many years ago at a meditation retreat in Canada in the winter, there was deep snow. My practice had reached a place where I was very close to a deep penetration into the Unconditioned and afraid to let go into that space. Keeping control. Late one night it was snowing hard and Aaron suggested to me, "Go out in the snow and walk."

I don't have good balance because I have no inner ears balance mechanism, so I need a stick to balance in snow, sand or any place where there isn't stable footing. I walked a short distance from the building, and the snow was about 2 feet deep. Aaron said, "Put your stick down and close your eyes." I said, "I'll fall." He said, "That's exactly the point. Just watch this whole notion of needing to be upright. Fear of falling. How far are you going to fall? The snow is thigh deep."

So I fell. I just lost my balance and I felt myself going over sideways, but there was no one to catch me. Just collapsing into the very soft snow. He suggested I just lie there for a moment, lie in the snow and watch the movement of contraction and release, then get up and do it again.

I must have done it 100 times, just allowing the experience of falling and remembering, it's safe to fall. As children we used to love to do that. Falling into a pile of leaves. The resistance to physical falling is so much of a metaphor for being upright, being capable, not leaning on others, all those stories that we have. It feels so good to give ourselves permission to do fall. I found for me that night, giving myself permission not to be the one in control was very important. I came back into the meditation hall and sat and moved into a very deep space, a very deep and direct experience of the Unconditioned, away from the personal self, that no-self experience. I had experienced that before but never to that depth. I had not been able to allow myself to experience it because there was still that which needed to be in control. The falling broke it down. It broke down the whole idea of somebody who needs to be that upright one. Very interesting experience.

Others?
(Pause).

I would like you to take this experience home. I'm paraphrasing Aaron. He's saying, watch the energy that comes with the "somebody" in control. What does it mean to let yourself not be in control? How does it feel? He says, when he says "not in control," it doesn't mean if somebody's angry at you, you start punching him. He means not having to maintain that rigid control because at a deep level you know you're not going to start punching him. You don't have to worry about losing control because there is certainly you're not going to blow up in some harmful way. If somebody is saying something that's uncomfortable, watch that energy that says, "No. I can't allow myself to respond," afraid that you'll say something hurtful back. Trust you won't say something hurtful back, but you can watch the energy that's afraid that you will. Just let go. Allow yourself to experience unpleasant thoughts, negative emotions, body discomfort, to experience all of this without so much fear of it. Just let go into the experience. He's saying, in a sense, fall into the experience, and trust that your own deep wisdom and intention to non-harm and love and compassion will support you and hold you. So just as the group supported you, your own goodness will support you, in a sense. Trust that deep aspect of yourselves so there doesn't have to be this bossing voice, "Now let's be in control." Just collapse into the experience. Let Aaron speak. I'm having a hard time getting exactly what he is saying.

Aaron: I am Aaron. Observe first how does it feel to be so guarded, tight, and watchful. I don't mean watchful as the observer, with awareness; I mean watchful from the small go the self. It comes from a place of fear. And then see what happens when awareness observes the presence of that self. This is awareness watching the ego. The reactions are just habit energy.

Awareness comes from an openhearted place, present, loving. What happens when you allow yourself to fall into the spaciousness of the open heart? When there's sadness, be there with sadness. When there's anger, be there with anger. Don't indulge these emotions with sentimentality; just be present and know them. In that sense of falling into it, to come into the direct experience of sensation and thought and see them for what they are. Free of all of those old stories, there is just this moment, with anger, sadness, fear, discomfort, or confusion. What is the direct experience of confusion when there are no stories about it? What is the direct experience of anger when there are no stories about it? What is the direct experience of loneliness when there are no stories about it?

Try it and let us know what happens. I would like you to come prepared to share a bit about the path of your investigation in these 2 weeks.

Are there other questions? Do you understand what I'm asking you to do? Please be gentle with yourself, don't force yourself into being present with fear or anger or body pain beyond a point where you feel, "I can't do this." If you feel that you can't get any closer to it, respect that and allow yourself to back away a little, and then come back to it again later. No force, only gentle kindness. But with that gentle kindness, ask yourself to be more present with whatever it is that discomforts you. In the beginning, we are talking about experiences like fear or body discomfort. But eventually I think most of you will shift into experiences of shame or loneliness, wanting to be loved, wanting approval.

There's a beautiful teaching called the Worldly Dharmas. Pleasure and pain, success and failure, gain and loss, fame and defamation. These enter all your lives in a steady flow, and you can not hold onto the pleasant ones nor avoid those that are unpleasant. We can watch these. Everybody wants pleasure, nobody wants pain. Everybody wants success, nobody wants failure. Everybody wants approval, not disapproval. Watch how you try to maintain an upright, in control posture to avoid shame, disapproval, displeasure, discomfort, failure, and how stressful it is to constantly have to be a somebody trying to hold that posture. Just relax a little. See what happens. Each of you will find your own predominant places of holding. Remember that much of what you find is just habit energy, so don't build a story of a self who has to get past this or that. That's just more suffering! None of your habit energies are bad as opposed to good, but they may be uncomfortable for you. Maybe you don't need them any more. This is the gentle discarding of the lifejacket. Are there questions?

Then I shall close now and return you to Barbara.

(taping ends)

Copyright © 2005 by Barbara Brodsky