265. Opening to pain

This week Love Is The Power gives you an incredibly vulnerable, incredibly beautiful inquiry with a brave share. If you’ve ever experienced the frustration of chronic pain or illness of the body, you have probably experienced the devastating sense of hopelessness that can come with it. Holding space for that emotional pain, Tom initiates an exploration of the sensation of physical pain. Byron Katie says that all pain is imagined. That can be a hard one to get our heads around – especially when we’re in the midst of pain. But what if it’s true? What if who we really are is pure awareness that is itself unaffected by pain? What if the awareness that perceives the pain (whether the pain is physical or emotional) is who we really are? And what if that awareness is an experience of pure peace?

This week’s meditation begins with noticing the tendency to hold on. It sharpens to a more specific inquiry: “I need to hold onto the wrongs done to me and the wrongs I’ve done to others.” Is that true? The group digs deeper beneath that enticing story that can just seem so factual, like common sense. “Of course I need to hold on! Otherwise how will I make amends? Or get the apologies I deserve?” But what is life like when we hold on to the wrongs we’ve done and had done to us? And even more fascinating – what would our experience be like if we didn’t believe we needed to? There’s a powerful shift that takes place with the questioning of these stories in this group. Feel free to join in on your own!

This week’s episode explores the thought, “I need to be valued.” This thought can become so insidious with its underlying beliefs – for example, believing our support, our existence depends on being liked by others. There can be a laundry list of things we think we need to be valued for: our time, our presence, our various roles, and most often just … ourselves. But what happens when we believe this? What becomes of our sense of freedom? As Tom often puts it, does it give us a big, fat ‘Yes!’ to life? Or does this thought become a prison shackle that we try to accommodate by contorting ourselves in order to be valued by others, and resenting them when they don’t come through with that validation? If you’re somewhere on your own freedom journey, we invite you to join this conversation and facilitation guided by Tom.

In this week’s short but sweet episode, we look at wanting attention and the high that seems to come when we get it. Tom points out that the high is really just a moment of experiencing what it’s like to let go of the need for attention. Could it be that what we’re really seeking is the experience of letting go? Often Tom will ask, in response to different desires (“I want people to love/like me, I want to matter, I want security…”), what do you want that for? Usually the answer is some variant of peace, relaxing, letting go, feeling okay, just being, etc. If there’s something you notice you want in this moment, the invitation is to notice what you want it for. Maybe, like this episode’s guest, it isn’t finally getting that thing that will give you the experience you’re looking for. Maybe it’s the letting go of wanting.

This week’s episode holds space for one of the main fears that can come up when we’re experimenting with inquiry and getting free: the fear of being insensitive. As Tom points out, deep down nobody wants to be insensitive to the suffering that goes on in this world. And when we reach states of openness and freedom ourselves, sometimes the fear that shows up is hurting other people by not joining them in their misery. Through a vulnerable health-related share and an exploration into the possibility that everything – everything – works out in the best way possible, that sparks the conversation about how sensitivity fits into the equation of personal liberation, we invite you to join in on The Work.

Tom likes to say there’s two main religions on this planet: “There’s right and wrong,” and “If you get it wrong it’s serious.” This week’s episode focuses on the first of those commonly held beliefs and – through The Work – questions it. When we enter question 3 and look at how we react, what happens when we believe the thought, we’re done looking at whether it’s true or not. We are purely experiencing the effect of believing that it is true. So even if this thought has been drilled into you by parents/school/society/what have you, you have the freedom to look at your own experience and notice through the natural intelligence that shows up within us in inquiry what truly helps you show up the way you’d like to in life. Does the religion of right and wrong support you? If yes, you’re free to keep it. If it hurts in any way, you’re free to question it and follow along in this popcorn-style inquiry.

There’s a lot going on in the world. Again. For many of us, the political landscape is where we get our work. Watching things that feel very far out of our control happen in ways we think they shouldn’t is infuriating. Take political “leaders” contributions to climate change or as an example. It can be incredibly difficult and terrifying to watch, as is bravely brought up in this week’s episode. One amongst many deep insights Tom shares in this time is that we reap what we sow, and if there’s fear behind a tree-planting project (e.g.) then we’re not planting trees; we’re planting fear. This is why self-inquiry is one of the greatest acts of social activism we can take: it takes care of the fear within us and cleans up our emotional world, a change reflected instantly in the world at large. If you’re feeling powerless, devastated, or downright outraged, this episode is for you. We hear you, and we invite you to follow along with your own work for social change.

This week’s episode took a turn from an exploration about money to the concept, “I need a reason to…” (fill in the blank). It took that turn for no apparent reason, although we think it did make for a pretty sweet episode. Tune in now to inquire into the assumption that everything we do needs a good reason behind it. A good reason to have the goals we have, a good reason to follow through on them, a good reason to say no, a good reason to say yes… Is any of that true? (You get to ask YOU.)

This week’s episode centers around the feeling many of us experience as the worst possible fate: getting in trouble. Have you ever, as a kid or a grown-up, experienced someone being upset with you? Can you find the drop in the pit of your stomach when you believe that their anger means you’ve gotten ‘in trouble?’ Some people’s response to this thought is to yell back, some run away at the first chance, while others go numb and end up feeling like they abandoned themselves. Can you relate to these? What other reactions do you notice to the thought? And what might you notice if you didn’t believe it? Pick a moment where you feel like you got in trouble and follow along in this real-world situation inquiry.

This week’s episode is exploring the two halves of holding on. Specifically, holding onto opposing what we would not like to experience in life, and also holding onto what we would. What kind of creation do we live in when that’s the belief we’re operating from? Life becomes a tug-of-war of grasping and clutching at what we want, and resisting everything we want to avoid. Enjoy this week’s group meditation as we notice what it’s like to live these thoughts, and what possibilities lie beyond them.