Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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Archives for November 2011

Silence, Stillness, and the Art of Being

meditation“Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?”
~Maurice Freehill

There was a time when I was afraid to be still. I lived in my head, trying to analyze, organize, strategize, and figure everything out. Really, all I wanted was to be happy, and somehow my attempts kept missing the mark.

Then I learned about the power of stillness. I learned to refrain from moving my attention anywhere. I learned to stop creating a life through my mind and instead to let things be. I went from noise to silence, from doing to being.

It was a revolution that changed everything forever.

Resting in Stillness Is Meditation

When you rest in stillness, you notice the momentum of your habits and urges, but you don’t act on them. You actually experience the moment – the feel of the wind on your skin, subtle sounds you never noticed before. You can tell what your body wants and needs. You are here, alive, receptive.

It’s both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

The exploration of stillness is commonly called meditation. All it takes is a few minutes, and you will begin to see the benefits and potential. If you are interested, simply sit down, close your eyes, and be. Don’t try to stop your thoughts or change anything. Just be the awareness that everything arises in.

Even to suggest that you notice is too strong. Expend no effort at all. Simply be aware, which you are already anyway, and let things unfold. Thoughts and physical sensations appear, feelings arise…just allow everything without getting in the way.

That’s all there is to it. Do this period of non-doing for a few minutes or longer. Do it even when what appears is painful or challenging. Relaxing into stillness is so loving because you are letting go of the need to fight or control your experience. And if you feel the urge to fight or control, simply let that be also.

See how it works? There is always a path to peace. Allow everything, effortlessly, and resistance ends.

The Benefits Flow Everywhere

The secret power of the practice of meditation is that it begins to seep into your daily existence. Your body learns how to stay relaxed, even when things are hard. You begin to say, “Oh, this” rather than struggling or defending.

I was trying to exit a parking lot yesterday, and the line stopped moving for a long time. There must have been 12 cars stuck trying to get out, eventually with horns blaring. I felt the agitation of the other drivers like it was mine. It was so clear that I had a choice, and I chose peace. It was barely a ripple in my evening.

Returning to stillness again and again is the key to unlocking the prison door. You might feel like you’re trapped by the ways you react in the course of your daily life. It may seem impossible to sustain peace.

Allowing your attention to rest in silence lets you see these reactions with objectivity, and what becomes apparent is their stressful and unfulfilling nature. It becomes easier and easier to choose sanity and let these reactions fall away.

Relaxing into stillness creates the space for deep listening. It invites you to hear the truth that is spoken to you—the voice of insight and clarity that is normally muffled by inner noise and external busyness. Confusion diminishes, and your path is laid clear.

Tapping into silence draws you deeply into yourself. You can let go of the effort to think yourself into being. In this quiet, timeless space, you can effortlessly be. No walls, no division, simply the pure essence of you – alive, loving, and completely at peace.

What keeps you from exploring silence? What happens when you do explore it? I’d love to hear…

10 Life-Changing Facts About Happiness

life-changing facts happinessNote: This post is part of the Life-Changing Facts series. Check out the other posts on fear, attachment, habits, and healing the inner critic.

“The moment you move out of the way, you make room for the miracle to take place.”
~Dr. Barbara King

The number one desire for most people on this planet is to be happy. And I don’t mean the silly-smile-on-your-face version. True happiness is a deep sense of well being, the capability of abiding in a state of ease and peace that is present no matter what. Happiness is a way of being that can permeate every moment of your life.

The Problem

But for most of us, happiness seems to be elusive. Instead of simply being happy, we play out conditioned habits that distort our thoughts and bring drama and disappointment to our lives.

If you want to be happy – reliably, completely happy – then you need to see in great detail how your thought patterns and emotions make you unhappy. When you stop feeding unhappiness, you will realize a simple fact: you always have the option of being happy.

The Facts

Are you ready to get serious about happiness? Then consider these 10 life-changing facts. Contemplate them and apply them diligently to your own inner experience. You will know the happiness you long for.

1. Enduring happiness is possible. This is the essential starting point. You can have faith that enduring happiness is possible. How do I know?

I used to live with lots of inner struggles, wondering why I couldn’t be happy. Years ago, I heard about the possibility of ending suffering. I didn’t know how to achieve it, but I was set on fire to find out.

Now I know. If you make the choice to live a conscious life in every moment and investigate how you get in your own way, enduring happiness is possible.

2. You need to get serious about happiness. Moments of happiness may appear, but if you want to be truly, deeply happy, you need to get down to serious business. The power of habits is strong, so happiness takes a great willingness to be aware.

Make the commitment to happiness, keep it alive in every moment, and you will see results. Guaranteed.

3. If you rely on unreliable objects for your happiness, you will not end up happy. What is an unreliable object? A person, a situation, the future, a house, possessions, money, status. None of these can offer you a guarantee of happiness because they are outside your control.

And if you place your happiness in the hands of something you don’t control, you have set yourself up for disappointment.

Don’t look for happiness in anything outside yourself. Instead, turn your attention inside. Shed the habits and patterns that keep you unhappy, and you will discover the wellspring of happiness that is always here, unrelated to any objects or circumstances.

4. If you want to be happy, look at how you make yourself unhappy. Happiness is your true nature. It is here, always available, but is masked by your conditioning. If you want to know happiness, these automatic habits and patterns need to be untangled.

Don’t wait for happiness to miraculously appear in your life. Notice when you are unhappy, and investigate:

  • What are you thinking?
  • What are you believing?
  • What emotional reaction has captured you?

Become an expert in how your conditioning works and the ways it affects you. You will see that these habits are stressful and depleting. Then, you are faced with a choice. Make the commitment to no longer feed them with your attention. They don’t serve you anyway, so let them soften and dissolve.

When you stop buying into the patterns that make you unhappy, simply relax and feel the sense of well being that is possible.

5. Happiness breeds more happiness. When you incline your thoughts, feelings, and actions toward happiness, you create a happiness momentum. How to do that? Don’t be afraid to be happy.

Orient your life toward situations and people you enjoy. Notice what is already working, rather than what needs to be changed. Open your heart to recognize your many blessings.

6.Happiness is always present and available. You can spend a lifetime trying to work out your past so you can feel resolved. And sometimes these tangles need attention.

But don’t put off happiness one more second. Don’t delay happiness by thinking things need to be perfect before you are happy.

Instead, go deeply into the direct experience of this present moment, right now. Let all boundaries and mental structures collapse, including the idea that you are a separate entity in this vast universe of love. This is the doorway to the enduring happiness you are searching for.

7. Happiness is a word that refers to a state that can’t be defined in words. Many words point to happiness – peace, ease, well being, love – but none of them defines it accurately. True happiness is a state, an experience. It is life itself, the essential reality of all things.

Just for one moment, let go of your idea about what happiness is. In fact, let go of all ideas about everything. Drop any words, and notice what is actually here in your direct experience – the peace beyond peace. You have come home.

8. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. These are the words from a recent research study that shows that people spend on average half of their waking hours thinking about something other than the task at hand and that these wandering thoughts cause unhappiness.

When you realize that your mind has wandered, shift your attention into the present. Simply see, hear, taste, touch, and breathe. Experience reality as it is unfolding right in this moment. There is no struggle here, only peace, ease, and happiness.

9. Thoughts undermine your happiness. Become very knowledgeable about the kinds of thoughts that undermine your happiness. Then, when you notice that they have taken hold, relax your attention away from them. Make a vow to say “No” to the thoughts, and say “Yes!” to happiness every time they appear.

These thinking patterns can’t possibly support you in being happy:

  • Self-criticism
  • Compulsive worrying
  • Regrets about the past
  • Stories of how you have been wronged
  • Thoughts about how things should be different than they are.

When they are present, you will know, as you feel heavy, tense, and depleted. Now you have the chance to make the essential choice. Just say no, every time. And as you do, you dip into the endless well of happiness that is here in this very moment.

10. Happiness is a choice. There are many things in life you don’t have control over, but you do have a choice about where you place your attention. You can feed stories that keep you afraid, despairing, and emotionally upset. You can convince yourself that you are unworthy of happiness. Or you can move your attention to the truth of what is present now.

I know these mental habits can be intense and consuming. But truth is more powerful. Love is designed to heal. Every time the habits arise, shift your focus to the present. Again and again and again. See what is actually true. Live here, and be happy.

What interferes with your happiness? I’d love to hear…

Note:  I love the work of Tara Mohr. Tara has recently released a book of her amazing poetry with the most beautiful images, which you can find here.

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Feeling Inadequate? A Guide to Discovering Your True Magnificence

not feeling inadequate“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”
~Eckhart Tolle
Are you pretending that there is something missing? Feeling a sense of lack is so pervasive in our society. And believing in your inadequacy prevents you from recognizing the brilliance that is already always here.

Just watch ten minutes of commercials on TV. You will be told that you aren’t young enough or stylish enough, that you need exactly what you don’t have. We live in a culture of non-acceptance and dis-ease, compounded even further by what we learn from our families as we grow up. It’s a legacy of lack.

A Personal Sense of Lack

Of course, this sense of lack seeps into our personal psyches. Do these sound familiar?

  • Piling on the “should’s” – what you should and shouldn’t do or be
  • Needing others’ approval to feel OK about yourself
  • Criticizing yourself endlessly
  • Feeling that there must be something more
  • Compulsively seeking objects to fill yourself up

It’s like the bucket is always leaking so you can never feel whole, relaxed, full, and at ease.

The Way Out

If you take one point away from this post, let it be this: there is a way out. It is absolutely possible for you to live the moments of your life in peace rather than poverty, fullness rather than fear and despair.

Do you know how to pay attention?
Are you capable of love?

Then you have the tools to realize the relief you seek. And where do you end up when you use them? Smack in the middle of the land of happiness. The well being you have always wanted is here, available, possible for you. You can stop trying so hard. You can relax and be still.

The Art of Paying Attention

If you are living in lack, then you are caught in a story that has convinced you of your inadequacy. You are giving your most precious resource, your attention, to believing in not being good enough. And this problem will never be solved by thinking more about it.

Know this: what you feed is what will grow. Feed lack, and you get more lack. Bring your attention into what you are experiencing in the moment, and you can be free.

Whenever you spin in the story of inadequacy, stop. See what emotions you are feeling, and welcome them. Notice the sensations in your body, and breathe with them. The story diminishes, and in that moment, you are free.

Add up these moments, and the fire of inadequacy becomes a pile of ash.

Every time the inadequacy rises up, now you know what to do. Bring your attention away from the story in your mind, and be in the moment with your feelings and physical sensations. Time after time…peaceful moment after peaceful moment.

The Art of Loving

Now comes the juicy part. You get to steep yourself in love. Whenever the sense of lack arises, counter it with kindness. Give yourself what you think you are lacking, which is love.

Take every thought, every painful emotion, and bathe it in love. How to do that? Accept it, welcome it, allow it to be as it is. Put down the fight with what is present in your experience, and wholeheartedly let it be.

Can you see how your entire experience can be transformed? No longer stuck in the story of lack, no longer pretending you are a fraction of your true magnificence.

Practice paying attention to your in-the-moment experience. Practice being a loving host to whatever arises. Rinse and repeat in every difficult moment. In the face of this intelligent practice, inadequacy dissolves.

And when it does, You are revealed – shining, open, peaceful, loving. Shed the story of lack, and discover that you are already overflowing.

Do you have problems with inadequacy? Does the practice I am offering here make sense to you? I’d love to hear…

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Why You Need to Be a Very Good Student

“Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.”
~Claude Bernard

What are you looking for? Do you want to make a change…discover how to stop suffering…realize the essence of your true self? There are so many beautiful teachings available – more than you will ever need. But what is most imperative is this: you must be a very good student.

How to Learn

You can hear or read the most clear and articulate teaching, but if it falls on deaf ears or drops into a mind that is closed like a bank vault, then things will stay exactly as they are. If you are lost in seeking, if you keep trying to find answers, you need to reflect on what you are bringing to the table as a student.

As you know, the momentum of conditioned habits is very strong. They infiltrate your body and mind and squelch your spirit. Unraveling them takes great resolve and commitment. You need to be very aware so you can see how they begin to take hold. And you need to stay open so you can receive the teachings you need in the deepest part of your being.

There was a moment in my own journey when this lesson landed. I had been hearing the same words over and over, retreat after retreat. Finally, in a stroke of grace, the clouds covering my mind parted, and the light poured in. I realized that my task was to take what was being spoken and apply it in my moment-to-moment experience.

It was the end of spoon-feeding, which doesn’t work anyway, and the beginning of true transformation.

Embody These Qualities

It is so easy for our brains to get congealed. We become so attuned to the familiar that the new seems inconceivable. But here is the truth: you have the capacity to know the peace you long for.

Are you waiting for your life to begin? Are you seeking but not finding? Then maybe you can be a better student by tapping into these essential qualities.

Openness

Let every aspect of your being be open. Open your eyes, your ears, your pores and cells and heart, your brain and mind. It might feel strange at first, like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz who is just getting oiled. But just this degree of openness may be enough.

Willingness

Be willing to go into the most feared places within yourself. Be willing to try something new, go out of your comfort zone, challenge your thoughts and beliefs about the world. Absorb the teachings you need, then apply them diligently to your own experience.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm comes from the Greek meaning, “possessed by the gods.” Let yourself be possessed by your quest for wholeness and freedom. Be willing to go out on a limb, to do things that don’t make sense, to let your journey unfold through you.

Curiosity

Be acutely interested in your in-the-moment experience. Be curious about how your reactions work. Shine your laser-like attention into the heart of your habits.

Trust

Teachers come in all shapes and sizes, but the ultimate teacher is life itself. Your teacher may be your child or an illness or loss. Trust that you are getting exactly what you need for freedom. And if you follow a person who is teaching, choose wisely, then trust completely.

Humility

Forget what you already know that isn’t serving you, and adopt an attitude of, “I don’t know.” Recognize that your mind tries to solve problems it can’t begin to know the answer to. Empty yourself of what you think you know, then let something new come forth, fresh in the moment.

Dedication

Stay with it. The journey to wholeness and healing can bring you all kinds of challenges. Remain connected with your true heart’s desire. Keep the fire burning.

Self-kindness

Habits run deep, so treat yourself with tough love. Be unceasingly attentive, and unendingly kind. Relax and breathe. Not resisting anything is the most loving thing you could ever do.

If there is something you know you need to learn, be like a sponge. Absorb the teachings and let them filter in completely. Then, as if you are reborn, emerge – fresh, alive, and whole.

How are you doing as a student? How can you incorporate what you learn into your daily experience? I’d love to hear…

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