Are You an Enabler?

I am an aware person--and--I was an enabler.

My path to becoming an enabler started out as most do, as someone trying to help, and thinking that I could. A dear friend who is also a relative came to me in trouble, having lost her job, about to lose her health insurance and unable to pay rent. An intelligent, honest and kind woman, she was not afraid of hard work and had always demonstrated a strong moral character. She desperately wanted to work and was trying diligently to find employment. When she first asked me for financial help, a short- term loan, it was a no-brainer. She’d never had trouble paying her bills, and there was no reason to think that she wouldn’t get herself out of this recent financial pickle. And so, without much thought, I wrote her a check…

Eight years later, she was still in that pickle only that pickle had morphed itself into a malignant sub-machine gun. For eight years she came to me for money on an increasingly frequent basis, with increasingly dire potential consequences, and with an increasing sense of entitlement. For the most part she paid me back although sometimes not for a long time, and sometimes after I had already loaned her more on top of what she already owed me.

Complicating the matter, she wasn’t just a relative and friend, she was also deeply involved in my children’s lives; she loved my children…and was also someone I loved, and still love. I didn’t want her to suffer as she was suffering or be tormented by the relentless fear and desperation she felt.

Also, I was in a position where I had a good job and some money in the bank; she had neither. I could help, which in my mind meant that I should help. She was in pain and also family after all.

Year after year she continued to ask me for money. But no matter how much I “helped,” her financial situation got worse. She was also growing more despondent and angry, more aggressive in her behavior towards me. She spent money that she didn’t have, assuming that I would cover her. Despite many frank and difficult conversations, nothing changed. Finally, despite great ambivalence, I told her that I could not continue to play this role in her life. I didn’t want us to resent each other. Difficult as it was, I laid down an official “no more” declaration.

Although I sounded clear outwardly, inside I was anything but. I felt terrible about the decision to stop “helping,” selfish, un-loving, and incapable of deep compassion. In light of my longtime Buddhist practice, I felt like a spiritual fraud.

She was on her knees, begging literally, and also threatening terrible things, if I didn’t rescue her. She looked like an animal with its leg in a trap, helpless and terrified, and enraged—at me. Looking at her face, white with terror, furious with desperation and humiliation, still I held my ground. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but some part of me knew I had to do it.

The result was that she acted out her threats and I believe, punished me for attempting to stop the cycle.  She stopped taking care of her life, on every front, and ended up homeless (except if I would have her) and ill, without health care, and without any community. I spoke with relatives and former friends, but no one was willing/able to help her.

As I experienced it, she was now my third child, my charge. In truth, I still loved her, and wanted her to find her way back to independence, to enjoy her life. Nonetheless, I also knew that I had been bullied into saving her, despite my decision to stop, but it would not happen again.

Two years later, back on her feet at least minimally, having never paid me back the large amount of money she now owed me, she asked again. “Just to cover her for a short time” was how she put it, as if it were a small and casual affair, with no history. The tone of the request was perhaps even more shocking than the request itself. But this time when I said “no” I was certain I would not waver. What followed however, I could never have imagined.

This friend and relative, whom I thought I had been (lovingly) taking care of for years, ferociously attacked me verbally and emotionally. She abused me with her words and anger, accused me of wanting to destroy her, of being a terrible and sadistic person, the antithesis of family. And, she blamed me, fiercely, for the impending consequences she would suffer as a result of my not fixing her life. As she saw it, I was not only to blame for what would happen to her but actually intended for her destruction. I had abandoned her, and my abandonment was the cause of the horrible pain she was enduring. Finally, she assured me that I would go down with her when she fell, that she would make sure of it.

It was nearly impossible to process—violent rage and hatred from a person that I believed I had been “helping” for nearly a decade, someone that I loved and that I believed loved me!

She continued to bully me emotionally for months, to make me know and feel her suffering. She made life extraordinarily stressful not just for me, but also for my children. Her fury was terrifying and seemingly bottomless. Occasionally, between rages, she would approach me with kindness, express deep gratitude for all that I had done for her, and acknowledge my generosity. Still, no matter her approach, wrath and hatred or gratitude and responsibility, I painstakingly continued to say “no.”

I had become an enabler. Realizing this truth was like waking up from a terrible dream. With my role named, I was suddenly able to change. What was it that allowed me to know myself as an enabler, finally, after years of co-creating this disastrous situation—all with the best of intentions?

Your Truest Friend Resides Inside Your Own Heart

As we age it seems that fighting with friends becomes less necessary or even possible. There are fewer matters worth fighting about and even fewer worth risking the friendshipover. That said, I recently had a real fight with a dear friend. The fight arose because my friend had decided that I had done something that in fact I had not done. It was an action that I believe would have been unkind and devoid of integrity. It was not only that I had not committed the act but also, that I could not have done it, as it would have sharply conflicted with my own integrity and internal wellbeing.

Unfortunately for both of us, my friend had taken pieces of reality and, as the human mind is inclined and skilled at doing, woven those independent truths into a larger story, filling in the gaps and constructing a cohesive narrative, which could have made sense but was in fact not true. My friend was suffering intensely with his false beliefs about me, and the proceeding story, namely, what those beliefs meant for our friendship. At the same time, I was suffering at the hands of his mind, being punished for a crime that I had not committed, and a belief about my nature, which was radically out of alignment with my actual behavior. And yet, no matter what I offered, my friend chose to stick to his false assumptions and write the final act of our friendship. I realized, after great strife, that he was more committed to holding onto his pain-inducing and friendship-annihilating story than to opening to the truth, and possibly, the feelings that the actual truth might bring. I came to understand that the truth, what had actually happened, was irrelevant at this moment. His fictional reality was real in his mind and body. Real, but not true.

With so much at stake, fighting naturally erupted. He fought fiercely for me to concede to his mind’s version of reality, and I fought equally fiercely for him to know the actual reality, and with that, to stop punishing me for a fictional crime, and erasing the truth of our deep friendship.

While fighting for the truth did little to shift my relationship with my friend, it was profound in how it transformed my relationship with myself.

When we fight, our tendency is to want to correct the other person’s version of truth, essentially, to get them to agree with our version. We explain our truth over and over again, in newfangled words and styles, desperately trying to create some consistency between what we believe to be truth and what the other believes. The internal dissonance can feel unbearable when our version of truth is in contradiction to another’s with whom we are involved emotionally, particularly when the truth in question implies something about our character or who we think we are.

When all attempts at truth-correction with my friend had failed, I had nowhere to go, no way to be heard or known correctly. The desperate efforts that had been focused outward, on getting him to change his beliefs, to see the truth about me, had not given me what I needed. It was then that I woke up: I remembered to turn my attention inward, and bring myself the loving attention, listening presence and understanding that I had been so desperately trying to get from my friend. I realized that I could not stake my own okayness and wellbeing on his changing his beliefs. Not only was that not going to happen, but it put me in a perilous and helpless position. I needed to be able to get okay with just my own acknowledgment of my truth and goodness. I made the choice to stop chasing what I needed and open to how painful it was to be misunderstood and misperceived, and possibly to also lose the friendship for reasons that were false. I gave myself the right to know what was true, even if it would never be known by another. I honored my integrity and strength in having made the choices I had actually made. I gave myself precisely what I needed to receive from the outside world.

It’s normal to want those we care about to share our version of truth. And yet, our tendency is to need external acknowledgment and validation in order to make true what we already know ourselves. The time comes however, when we need to start taking care of our own knowing, to provide acknowledgment and kindness to our own truth. When I turned inward and honored the sadness and loss in being misperceived, the truth of what I know actually happened, and the integrity of my choices, I felt known, loved and comforted. The attunement that I desperately sought from my friend, I received from my own loving presence. While I will always wish for my friend to know the truth, and me correctly, I am nonetheless able to bring myself the love and understanding, the wellbeing that I thought only he could provide.

In our search for an other who will hear and understand our truth with compassion, we consistently overlook our own company; we forget our own presence as a source of deep comfort and kindness, and blessedly, one that is always available to us. We need only the willingness and wisdom (and sometimes the reminder) to turn our attention inward, listen with kindness, and care about our own suffering. Particularly when we are in pain, searching desperately for comfort and relief from the outside world, we need to remember to flip the process. That is, to turn towards our own heart, listen to what it is carrying, and offer ourselves the compassion and loving presence that we are searching for outside. The experience of being deeply seen and cared about is ours to give—and receive—here now, when we decide to truly be with our own heart.

When Is It Time to Stop Fixing Ourselves?

Are you a self-help junkie? Even if you don’t have a stack of books on your bedside table with the newest ways to fix yourself, you still might be.  And it wouldn’t be your fault if you were.  We are conditioned from a very young age to believe that we need to become better, new and improved versions of ourselves, even if at first we don’t know exactly how or why.  But soon enough we have filled in the why-s with our shortcomings and failures and self-help provides the how-to-s in its unending methods for self-correction.  Armed with our story of deficiencies firmly in place and a surplus of paths towards improvement, we set off on our life mission, namely, becoming someone else.  And, we are proud of and celebrated for our mission. Growing and evolving, becoming a better person, it all sounds so virtuous.  Who would turn down such an opportunity?  

And yet, growing and evolving are too often code words for what is really "getting fixed" or correcting our basic unworthiness.  From the time we are young, we are infiltrated with the belief that the basic problem underlying all other problems is, put simply, us.  We are what’s wrong.  As adults, we search the globe for the right teacher; we attend seminars, buy books, hire coaches, consult shamans, and everything else under the sun, all in an effort to make ourselves into something good enough or maybe just enough.

But good enough for what or whom?  Did you ever wonder?

If we boil it down, we keep fixing ourselves in the hopes that we can, finally, just be as  we actually are.  Once we're fixed, enough, worthy--whether that means more compassionate, more disciplined, more grateful, more peaceful, more attentive, more informed, more important, more even-tempered, more spiritual, or whatever shape our more-s have formed into, then and only then we'll be entitled to feel what we feel, think what we think, experience what we experience, in essence, be who we are.

The fear that fuels our self-betterment mission is the belief that we are, at our core, not what we should be, faulty, broken, lacking, nothing, unworthy, undeserving, unlovable, or some other version of not okay.  To give ourselves permission to be who we are, give up the mission for a better version of ourselves would be tantamount to accepting our defectiveness and giving up all hope of fruition.  And that, of course, would be unwise, naive, lazy, a cop out, and despairing. To suggest that we stop striving to be better than who we are is not just counter-intuitive, but frightening and dangerous. Such a suggestion incites fear, scorn, anger, confusion, amusement, and an assumption of ignorance.

Self-help, while useful in certain ways, strengthens our core belief--that we are inherently defective.  Self-help starts with our defectiveness as its basic assumption, and then graciously offers to provide us with an unending stream of strategies by which to fix our defective core, which, once fixed, will award us the right to be who we are. The problem is that the strategies keep us stuck in the cycle of fixing--and more importantly, in the belief that we are broken. If you notice, we never do become that person who is allowed to feel what we feel, and experience what we experience.  We never do get permission to just be who and as we are. 

This is where spirituality enters, and offers something radically different than self-help. 

Most people think that spirituality and self-help are the same thing; they’re not.  In fact, they are fundamentally different.  We have tried to turned spirituality into self-help, another method for correcting ourselves, but to do so is to misunderstand and eradicate the most profound (and beneficial) teaching that spirituality offers.

True spirituality is not about fixing ourselves spiritually or becoming spiritually better.  Rather, spirituality is about freedom from the belief of our unworthiness, and ultimately, it is about acceptance.  Spirituality, practiced in its truest form, is about meeting who we really are, and allowing ourselves to experience life as we actually experience it.  In this way, it is more of an undoing than a doing. 

In truth, we need to take the risk that it is to lean back into who we actually are and to do that before we even know that who we are will be enough, or even that there will be anything there to catch us.  We need to relinquish our self-improvement plans before we believe that we have the right to stop improving.  The whole thing, true spirituality, requires a kind of faith, not a faith in a system, story or methodology, but a faith that trusts or a wisdom that knows that we can’t think our way into what we truly want, can’t ultimately make happen what we really need.  No matter what path we practice,there comes a point where we have to let go of the reins; we have to give up the quest to be good enough.  

What happens when we stop trying to change ourselves into something better is nothing like what we imagine.  We envision stepping off the self-help train and landing smack inside someone incomplete and unsatisfactory.  And yet in truth, the simple (but not easy) act of inviting ourselves into our own life, has the effect of placing us at the center of something so beautiful and extraordinary. Giving ourselves permission to be as we are miraculously creates a kind of love for ourselves, not so much for our individual characteristics, but for our being.  And not just for our being, but for the truth, whatever that is.  It is as if whatever we find inside ourselves, whether we wish it were here or not, it is okay and we are okay. Ultimately, we shift from trying to become lovable to being love itself.  And amazingly, from this place, the not-enough person we thought we were has simply vanished, or more likely, never was.

Try it out for a moment—this moment.  Just let yourself be.  Give yourself permission to have the experience you are having, whatever it is, with no story about whether it is right or wrong, good or bad.  Feel how you actually are.  It’s that direct and that simple.  No judgments allowed.  It won’t make sense... it takes a leap... so leap.

How to Deepen Your Relationship With Yourself

We all want to be happy which, at the simplest level, means that we want our life to be filled with experiences that we like and enjoy. There is nothing more inborn to the human being than the desire to want what is happening to indeed be happening. In service to this basic drive, we do everything we can to create lives that contain experiences that we want. The drive to create a life we like is a most healthy drive.

When we get what we want in our lives, there isn’t much that needs to be said or done. We might want to learn how to more fully enjoy the desired experiences or be more present or grateful, but such changes are fun and relatively stress-free. We are working with life’s good stuff, trying to figure out how to feel the good a little more intensely, or make the good stuff into great stuff.

But the question that every human being at some point in their lives needs to answer is not what to do with the experiences that they want, but rather what to do with the experiences that they don’t want.  No matter how hard we try to create a life that contains only what we want, life always includes the full menu. The fact that our life contains undesirable aspects simply means that we are human.

The question is not whether we can prevent unwanted experiences, we can’t, but rather how to live and relate to the experiences that we consider unwanted or painful. Can we live those experiences, in a new way such that they are not so painful, scary and derailing?

We have been conditioned to view unwanted experiences as personal failings. We believe that there is always something that we could have done differently to make that experience not happen, and if we could have done that thing, we would be a better person with a better life. But what if you were to choose to relate to your unwanted experiences as nothing out of the ordinary, simply a normal part of every human life? Could you throw out all ideas of the unwanted as representing some personal failure or success? What if the undesired aspects of life could just be what they are and not about your personal worthiness? What if you were to choose to relate to difficult experiences as opportunities to embrace yourself in compassion instead of assaulting yourself with blame?

In addition, we relate to unwanted experiences as dangerous to our wellbeing.  We believe that if we allow ourselves to accept or look into such experiences more deeply, we will be harmed. In truth, we have a choice as to what kind of relationship we want to conduct with our unwanted experiences, and ourselves when we are inside them. We can choose to turn towards the unwanted experiences, and get curious about the ways that our mind and body respond when in contact with the unwanted. As counterintuitive as it is to our conditioning, we can welcome unwanted experiences (when they have chosen to arrive despite our wishes) as fertile ground for discovery and enlightenment, a chance to get to know ourselves more deeply and truthfully, to honestly meet who we are. Could you get interested in whatever experience is arising in your awareness right now, to welcome the comfortable and the uncomfortable as equal opportunities for self-awareness and discovery?   Could you decide to turn your attention to the thoughts, feelings and sensations that are happening inside you even if they are not what you normally consider pleasurable?

We have a lot more choice than we believe in how we live our individual experiences. While we are conditioned to believe that negative experiences must be experienced negatively and positive ones, positively, we can shift this belief with a different attitude towards the purpose and meaning of experiences and what, ultimately, they are here to offer us. 

Try shifting your perspective for a day. You can always abandon the practice. Nothing will be lost. Imagine getting interested in whatever is arising inside you, whatever is happening in response to your present experience.  Choose to investigate your own experience, even when it is uncomfortable, and relate to it as an intimate doorway into your own mind and consciousness. You can opt to view all experience as just this. When all experiences are opportunities to deepen your relationship with your own being, to know your self, you can stop being so afraid of and rejecting of the experiences that you don’t want.

We will never stop trying to create experiences that we want. It is who we are as human beings. Until we are enlightened we will always prefer and wish for experiences that we like over those that we don’t. But when experiences do arrive at our doorstep (as they always will) that we have not invited, that we would never choose to bring into our house, it is best to find a way to relate to them without fear, and turn them into houseguests if we can. All experiences, welcomed, are opportunities to see and know the truth of ourselves more clearly. With this attitude, we can relate to our whole life, the sweet and the bitter, as enlightening, not necessarily wanted, but enlightening nonetheless, and in that light, meaningful.

How to Overcome the Fear of Feelings

I recently attended a panel discussion on the topic of happiness. Early on in the dialogue, one of the panelists addressed what he considered the mistaken way that most people think about happiness, namely, as a state that is free from pain or difficulty. He explained that we need to view happiness as a state in which all feelings are present and welcome, not just positive emotions. He went on to say that it is important to be able to sit with our feelings and feel what is actually happening inside us, even if it is hard stuff. While not new or revelatory, this is a profoundly true and important teaching, and one that I have also spent a lot of time writing about. What was revelatory however, was the follow-up question from the American journalist/moderator.

Upon hearing his suggestion that we “sit” with our real feelings, the journalist immediately jumped in to ask the following: How realistic was it for most people to be able to "just sit around” and feel their feelings? Was this not an issue of class in that the higher socioeconomic classes could spend their time contemplating their sadness while the rest of us regular folks had to get to work? How possible was it, really, for the average person, to be with or in their sadness, “sitting still” when things needed to get done? After all, didn’t we all need to get out the door and earn a living? 

The word “sit” had lit this moderator on fire, and in her response, morphed into “sitting still” and “just sitting around.” She was, seemingly, quite angered by the audacity of this author to suggest that we could feel our sad feelings in addition to our happy ones. As strange as it was to hear where the moderator went with his suggestion, her reaction is in fact common. In this culture we are afraid of feelings that are not happy, and conditioned to believe that feeling anything other than pleasure will prevent us from being able to go to work, live a normal life, or take care of ourselves. Allowing difficult feelings to be present will not only prevent us from basic functioning but will also endanger any positive feelings that might exist.  Happiness is an all or nothing condition. The underlying belief is that feeling our feelings as they really are will lead us to be fixated on our navel (the much maligned body-part associated with sad feelings), crying and eating chips on a dirty couch. A real life, one that includes going to work, buying groceries and being normal, and a state in which we feel our real feelings are two entirely separate things—and cannot coexist. We hold the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) belief that anyone who has the luxury of feeling their feelings must be independently wealthy and able to devote their entire life to their own struggles. And, if we are not already self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and unemployed, the privilege to experience painful feelings will lead us to become this way.

This journalist’s line of questioning clearly exposed the degree of fear and helplessness that we experience when in the face of challenging emotions. Given that difficult feelings are a part of everyone’s life, it has always amazed me that courses on learning how to be with and soothe such feelings is not required curriculum in every formal education. It is a real life skill that everyone needs. The idea that we could actually feel difficult feelings and still be strong and content is not only not taught, but instead we are encouraged to believe the opposite, that if we do allow ourselves to feel what’s inside us, our dark feelings will overwhelm and swallow us, never go away, and take us out of commission for life. And so we spend enormous amounts of energy trying to stay away from the harder feelings, fending them off, papering them over, keeping ourselves from feeling anything that we believe could disable us.

In truth, feeling our true feelings is not contradictory to living a functioning life. Quite the opposite. The more we allow our true experience to be felt, the more energy and attention we have to devote to our functioning life. We are no longer using up our energy and focus trying to push away the feelings that we don’t want and are afraid to feel. In addition, when we actually feel a feeling, we discover that no matter how strong or hard the feeling is, it has a natural life span and can only remain with intensity for a short time, far shorter than we have been led to believe. Feelings, when felt, actually pass through awareness and then ease, on their own. They may return but they will pass again, in contrast with the thoughts that we generate about the negative feelings, which continue unceasingly. Furthermore, feeling our feelings takes no effort, other than the slight effort that it is to give ourselves permission to feel them. And yet, even with no effort expended, the simple act of allowing what we feel, what is already there to be felt, has a profoundly satisfying and relaxing effect. When we stop having to fend off what we are not supposed to or allowed to feel, running from our truth, we can then relax into the embrace of our own company, and settle into our own real life.

The belief that we stay strong by ignoring our difficult emotions is false. Thinking that we must ignore how we really feel in order to make a living, be productive, get off the couch, or just plain take care of ourselves, leaves us in a state of constant fear. Every life contains happy feelings and sad ones too; such is the human condition. If we are afraid of our sadness and don’t believe we can manage or live a life with it, then our life contains a constant presence that is a threat to our basic wellbeing. As a result, we are in a state of perpetual weakness.

We are at our strongest, most high functioning and confident when we have the ability to experience whatever is passing through our feeling sky, without having to run from it, pretend it’s not there or force it away. We are most warrior-like when we learn to co-habitate with the full range of feelings, contradictory as they often are. We find our deepest confidence when we know (from lived experience) that feelings come and go and we can survive them, and will become a little bit stronger with each passage. We discover our most profound caretaker, inside ourselves, when we stop defending a single-pointed happiness, which always excludes another part of our story. We are at our most content and healthy when we give ourselves the blessing that it is to relax into what we actually feel, and live in our truth. Allowing ourselves to sit with our feelings, the ones we like and the ones we don’t, does not only not conflict with taking care of ourselves and conducting a real life—it is, in truth, our best means for taking care of ourselves and the very essence of a real life.

How to Look Out for Yourself

There are times in life when things fall apart, when we lose something deeply important, something that made us feel connected, grounded or safe. Sometimes a lot of things fall apart at the same time. There are times in life, for everyone, when it feels like all our safety nets get cut, and we are stripped of everything that we considered our foundation.

A friend of mine recently went through a divorce. The end of her marriage came, as many do, with great misunderstanding and pain. The worst part was that she felt like her best friend, her ex-husband, had turned into someone she didn't know, and who seemed to hate her, which created great sorrow and feelings of helplessness. She was now a 50-something single woman with the sense that nothing in life could be counted on. If this rupture could happen when her intentions had been so good, with someone whom she had loved so deeply, and been so honest with, then the world was surely an unsafe place. There was no ground to be found, nothing to root her to a sense of safety. She felt entirely untethered, terrified, as if she were floating in a space capsule that had lost touch with its earthly command center. 

She had no idea how to move forward.

What my friend did next is what so many of us do when we are in a situation of profound suffering: She switched into action mode. She started making plans to meet the next man, to get back into life. She joined “meetup” groups, registered with dating sites, called everyone she knew to find out who they knew that she might like. She purchased subscriptions to magazines that listed social activities in her city, signed up for new classes, and got "out there" in every way. No “next” stone was left unturned.

How my friend reacted to her sadness and fear is very normal, very human. When we dive into fierce action as a response to suffering, we are really just tying to make the bad feelings go away, and thus to take care of ourselves. We want to feel better, so we set out to figure out how to make that happen. We feel powerless, so we empower ourselves with action steps. In fact, there is nothing wrong with—and a lot right—with doing things to make ourselves feel better when we are suffering.

And yet, my friend's very normal action approach misses one crucial ingredient: It does not allow our actual feelings (and thus our self) to be included in our experience. As we feverishly set out to change our feelings, what is left out of the process is feeling what we are actually feeling.

When we experience great loss or emotional trauma, we usually don’t know what to do, or how to make it better—what the path to better will look like and how it will come about. In addition to allowing ourselves to feel the sadness, helplessness, and fear that loss brings, it is also profoundly important to allow ourselves to feel what it is like to not have an answer, and not know how we are going to make the situation change and remedy our pain. We can remind ourselves that the situation and the feelings will change, as everything always does, but that right now, in this moment, we can give ourselves permission to not know what to do.

For we Type A's, and even Type B's and C's, allowing the feeling of not knowing how to help ourselves can be very hard and scary. And yet, permission to not know is a profound gift to ourselves and an act of deep self-caring. Sometimes, this alone can ease the suffering and take care of our pain, without doing anything else whatsoever.

Suffering, as awful as it feels to walk through, is our teacher. But it can only teach us if we allow it to be felt. Sadness, fear, not knowing—all the difficult emotions, when experienced, change who we are, which ironically is what we are trying to accomplish when we run around frantically trying to fix our painful feelings. When we allow our real feelings to be here, as they are, we offer ourselves a warm embrace and the kindness of our own compassionate presence. We agree to be with ourselves, keep ourselves company in what we are truly living.

While it is contrary to how we are conditioned in this culture to respond to suffering, the simple act of letting ourselves feel how we feel is the act that is indeed most helpful in both healing and generating change. Allowing ourselves to be sad soothes sadness. Allowing ourselves to be afraid calms our fear. Allowing ourselves to not know how to fix our pain soothes the anxiety of having to fix it. Allowing ourselves to be who we are, as we are, allows us to feel deeply self-loved, welcome in our own life, and not alone.

When we allow ourselves to feel how we feel, we find the company of our own presence, which will always ease our suffering.