Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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Change Is Beautiful

change_is_beautiful“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh

I love change. In fact, isn’t that what’s happening in every moment?

The unfolding of life is constantly fresh and new. It’s always overflowing with potential—letting an old story fall away, taking a breath instead of recycling an old habit, meeting someone you know with no baggage from the past, finally listening to yourself.

Every moment serving up the possibility of freedom from constricting beliefs and the tug of familiar emotions. Peace is the changeless ground of being, and change is celebration of the living reality of our everyday lives.

Goodbye, Hello

In the spirit of change, I am excited to announce that it’s time to say “goodbye” to A Flourishing Life and “hello” to new opportunities. Writing this blog for well over three years has been an amazing experience.

I am grateful for my connection with each of you, readers from around the world. I’ve grown as a writer and clarified the ways I communicate what I love the most: the conscious knowing of the deepest happiness, present moment living so tender and alive.

I am happy to say that the blog will continue, but it becomes part of a larger offering. I have written a book that will be published later this year (very exciting!). And the name change of this site—to GailBrenner.com—makes room for the blog, book, and other ways I might contribute.

The Way of Yes

The forthcoming book is called, “The Way of Yes: Finding Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life.” It offers a bridge between the common problems we experience in everyday life and the spiritual understanding that will set us free.

Yes, freedom from problems is possible. The inner critic? Feelings of inadequacy? Stuck in pain from the past? In the Way of Yes, we start where we are to discover that peace is right here—once we see through the habits of mind and feelings that hijack us.

We go from living the Way of No—rejecting, resisting, avoiding, pretending—to finding the Yes! in every moment. And I can tell you that the land of Yes! is infinitely peaceful, all-embracing, endlessly loving.

The book, “The Way of Yes” is a new presentation flowing through my heart to yours. Not a compilation of blog posts, it offers a very careful guide to realizing your true nature. We walk together from problems to real solutions, from the sense that you are broken to the knowing that you are already everything you ever wanted.

The book is being prepared for publication and will be available some time later this year. In April or May, I’ll launch a new website with a fresh design. And all along, I’ll continue to post regularly here at GailBrenner.com.

Living the Yes!

The past few months have been a time of tremendous opening for me. I’ve been shown so clearly the mindsets that held me back. And each time an old thinking pattern was revealed, I saw the fallacy of it. “I couldn’t finish such a large project.” “What if no one cares?” “What if everyone cares?” I could have let these thoughts deter me.

But instead, I took a stand in truth—every time. And now? No limits, no barriers. Every cell of my being is completely available to whatever happens.

Life is so generous in that it endlessly offers opportunities and drops them right at our feet. It takes a clear mind and open heart to notice and the willingness to live true to act. The mind can come up with an array of excuses and justifications—in my case, more than I was consciously aware of.

But in every moment, the call is the same: to say Yes! to life.

What About You?

Now, I’m wondering about you. Are you answering the call? What holds you back? How do you say Yes? And No? Please share in the comments below. Believe me, you are not alone in whatever you are struggling with, and sharing benefits everyone.

Reflecting on these questions is the beginning of lifting the veils. We tell the truth. We feel the pain of self-betrayal.

And we live in the exquisite boldness of a life fulfilled.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you will write a book or quit your day job. The bold action for you might be to meet a loved one undefended, to not check your email for the zillionth time, to spend the extra moment with someone who needs it. And to realize who you are when fear and deficiency are seen through—infinitely peaceful, powered by love.

When you get out of the way, life, bursting with infinite potential, is right here, waiting for your kind and patient attention.

Comments? Questions? I’d love to hear…

A note to subscribers: If you receive posts by email or RSS feed, you don’t need to do a thing—delivery will continue as is. My twitter name has changed to @GBGailBrenner, but everyone who was following has been transferred to the new account. And I’m working on Facebook—it’s more complicated. Technology! I’m becoming more of an expert than I ever thought was possible.

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Is Your Comfort Zone Really That Comfortable?

comfortzone“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”

~Eugene Ionesco

Who doesn’t want to be comfortable? I love it when I have everything I need, when I’m relaxed, when I’m sitting in a cozy chair and I feel at ease with the people I’m with. All is well.

But there is this imaginary place we call our “comfort zone,” and I’m wondering if it is really all that comfortable.

What Is the Comfort Zone?

Let’s explore this idea of a comfort zone to see if it is actually supporting you and your happiness. What is it exactly?

  • It is not a real place. It is an idea created by you.
  • Its function is to keep you feeling safe.
  • It is what you know and are familiar with in all areas of your life—relationships, choices, how you spend your time—even thoughts patterns and feelings.
  • It excludes things you are afraid of or uncomfortable with.

Your comfort zone doesn’t sound like a bad place to be—unless you are comfortable with disharmonious relationships you avoid working on, unfulfilling behavior patterns, resentments from the past, and beliefs about yourself and the world that limit you.

It’s about keeping the status quo. And what is the force behind it? Fear.

It’s All About Fear

If you have a comfort zone, you must also have a discomfort zone. And what’s out there in the discomfort zone? All those experiences you are afraid of. Consider these:

  • Emotions you have been avoiding;
  • Changes that seem risky;
  • Potential and possibility that you aren’t allowing yourself to see;
  • The unknown, outside of what you believe to be true;
  • Ease with whatever life brings you;
  • The freshness of life unfolding as it is.

Living in your comfort zone divides the whole of reality into areas that are acceptable and unacceptable. It is a mind-created, fear-based division that requires you to manage your life experience so you don’t stray into unfamiliar territory.

Although you stay safe, you draw imaginary lines in the totality of what is possible that keep you stuck, scared, and dissatisfied. Feeling worthless, small, or doubtful, spinning your wheels in old baggage, thinking of yourself as a victim, habits that don’t serve—these are the province of the comfort zone.

The comfort zone may be safe, but what does it deny? Enthusiasm, wonder, curiosity, and infinite possibility beyond the mind’s limits. Is it really that comfortable?

Out Beyond Comfort

If you want your experience to be different than it is, if you’re not happy, then you are being offered a golden invitation—to go outside your comfort zone and get to know discomfort.

Sometimes life throws us out there whether we want it or not. Your wife says she wants a divorce, tragedy strikes, you watch your child going down a troubled path, you win the lottery. These are life-changing experiences that shatter our ideas about how things should be and make us reconsider everything.

But you don’t need to wait for an extreme life event. Connect with your heart and see what you really want. I doubt you’re truly comfortable playing it safe.

So what to do? Get comfortable with discomfort.

Realize that staying in the comfort zone takes effort and vigilance. It resists what is. It hides from what is true. It makes you believe you are fraction of who you really are.

Step away from playing it safe, and you enter the world of possibility. You stop basing your life on what is false and instead tell the truth.

  • Let yourself feel the fear that has been driving you, then don’t let it rule.
  • Experience the emotions that underlie your compulsive habits. It’s the only way to be free of them.
  • Have the hard conversations that you know will clean up your life. And it might be a conversation with yourself.
  • Be willing to answer the call to leap into the unknown.
  • Question every single way you define who you are to see if it is actually true.

You are welcome to stay in the comfort zone, if that is your preference. But be willing to tell the truth: is it really that comfortable?

Are you afraid of discomfort? Have you stepped out of your comfort zone? I’d love to hear…

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Note: Here is the video of a panel I moderated at the Science and Nonduality Conference. Topic is Spiritual Teaching, Psychotherapy, and the Quest for the Truth. Enjoy!

The Graceful Path of Emotions

graceful_path_emotions“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
~William James

“If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.”
~Epictetus

If you want to be happy and at ease in your everyday life, you need to be wise about what to do with feelings. Hiding from feelings or having them run wild in you, neither of these will bring you peace.

In the last post, I said, “Don’t follow feelings,” a proposition that resonated for some of you but raised questions for others. So let’s look more closely at the landscape of feelings.

Let These Unfold in You

Be aware. Sometimes you can’t help but be aware of feelings. They stare you in the face or completely consume you. But more often than you might realize, feelings sit below the surface of your conscious awareness.

If you are unhappy, confused, or stuck in frustrating habits, unseen feelings are likely to be the cause. Let yourself open to the feelings that may be present by simply being aware of them.

Be very clear about what a feeling is. Bring a laser-like curiosity to your experience of feelings to discover what they actually are. Just saying, “I feel sad,” or “I feel angry” isn’t the whole picture. When you take an honest look, you will see that what we call a feeling is a set of physical sensations and a story running in your mind. This story is probably very familiar to you, as it has been recycled millions of times. So go deeper and realize that there are physical sensations in your body.

This understanding is key because it pierces through the power that feelings can have. When you get that the story is unsatisfying and doesn’t serve, you can turn your attention away from it. And you can notice physical sensations, which are not a problem at all when seen in isolation as merely sensation with no story attached.

Welcome feelings. Be open and aware so you don’t fight the feeling. It’s very simple. You just turn toward it and say hello. Hello, fear. Hello anger. Then look straight into it to see what the feeling is – a label, a story, and physical sensations. Without feeding the content of the story, let all of it be.

Welcoming feelings takes away their power and offers the space for your natural, vibrant life to be revealed.

Realize that feelings are temporary. What makes feelings get stuck is recycling the associated story in your mind. When you are no longer interested in the story, you see that feelings come and go, if you let them, just like clouds passing overhead. And here you are, the stable presence in which all of it arises.

Let These Fall Away

Avoiding and resisting makes things worse. Avoidance of feelings is at the root of compulsions, addictions, and all matter of troublesome behavior. You can’t choose wisely if you are propelled by unseen emotions. When you are ready to get honest with yourself, acknowledge the feelings and learn how to work with them intelligently.

Want feelings to stay stuck? Feed the story. The story starts with the label of your experience, as in, “I’m furious right now.” And it goes on with a whole melodrama about what should and shouldn’t have happened. This is a kind of resistance to what is as you are rolling unpleasant thoughts around in your head rather than experiencing what is actually present.

Turning away from stories, especially very familiar ones, leaves you available to notice what is actually here. You stop thinking about what is happening and instead experience directly what is happening.

Don’t follow feelings. If your life is not as harmonious as you want it to be, you are most likely letting feelings guide your decisions. You feel an old resentment, so you stew about it or show up at a family gathering ready to take things personally or make impulsive choices so you don’t have to actually deal with your feelings. Maybe you feed fear which makes you limit yourself in so many painful ways.

If feelings are unexplored, they will have control over you. But when you know what feelings are present – and you know that you want peace and sanity in your life – you can make beautiful, wise, conscious choices that support your happiness that are not driven by feelings.

In a Crisis…

Chronic feelings are the ones that feed familiar ongoing habits that leave you dissatisfied and unfulfilled. And these are the ones that are asking for your direct and loving attention.

But acute feelings may require a different approach. In the middle of a life crisis, when you are dealing with tragedy, loss, or grief, your emotions may be so strong, so consuming that you can’t step back and be aware of them.

In these situations, focus instead on your moment-to-moment self-care. Be around supportive people. Eat well and exercise as best you can. Get professional help, if needed. Painful feelings may come in waves, so let them be, and notice the times when the feelings subside.

Eventually, you will know when the time is ripe for you to reflect on what has happened so your heart stays open. But be gentle with yourself, no need to rush it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once you realize that feelings don’t have to control you, they start to lose importance. The drama ends, and you realize you are conscious and alive in the moments of your life. That is how it has always been, but you were too caught up in feelings to notice. How amazing to recognize that peace is always possible!

Now go forth and enjoy…

Are feelings a sticking point for you? Have you discovered that you are free? I’d love to hear…

 

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Want to Be Happy? Don’t Follow Your Feelings

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“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

I know what it’s like to live a life driven by emotion, and believe me, it won’t make you happy. Someone shows up late, and you are triggered by fear and anger. You get some negative feedback, and you sulk in sadness. You live in anxiety, chewing on thoughts about what will happen next and if it will all be okay.

It’s like you’re a yo-yo on a string, with your happiness tied to all the circumstances in your life that you cannot control. If you ask me, this is no way to live.

Guided by Emotions

Until you become fully aware of your inner experiences, emotions will rule. Guaranteed. Emotions are highly conditioned, meaning that they are automatic reactions that arise in you in response to things that happen. A memory comes to mind? You don’t need to make yourself feel sad, you just do, and your whole day may be affected.

And it’s not only about how you feel.

If you make decisions based on emotions, you are unlikely to be happy and fulfilled. You feel empty and choose the first potential partner who comes along, even though the red flags are flying everywhere. Because you are afraid, you don’t reach out to engage fully in the world. Your resentment keeps your heart closed and your relationships stuck year after year.

You are making choices all the time – are these the ones you really want to be making?

I didn’t think so. Maybe it’s time to shine the spotlight on emotions. Once you no longer let them guide you, you uncover the natural intelligence that flows in you and realize that living in calm and clarity is absolutely possible. Things simplify tremendously as you stop resisting life.

And here’s the amazing truth. You don’t need to get rid of any emotions or change them into happier ones. That takes way too much effort.

Instead, become aware of the feelings that take you over because once you see how feelings have been driving you, you can put them aside. Really, it’s possible. Then you have the space to be reasonable, flexible, and smart about how you live.

It’s a practical and relaxed way of being that ends the drama of chaos and confusion.

Shining the Spotlight

Your starting point is anything that you call a problem. An unresolved relationship from the past, work stress, an ongoing situation that frustrates you. Now,

Connect with the most intelligent part of you, the part that wants sanity and knows that peace is possible.

From there, shine the spotlight on the emotion that is fueling the problem. Simply recognize whatever you are feeling and notice the gap between you and the feeling.

Step back to take a look at the big picture so you can see how the emotion isn’t serving you. Is it fear or anger? Sadness or jealousy? Is it helping or hurting? Ask honest questions to realize that it limits you and masks your true beauty that is aching to be seen.

Now, consider bundling up the feeling and putting it aside. Why? Clarity tells you that it doesn’t serve, it’s not reasonable, and it doesn’t bring you happiness. Without any judgment or struggle, just for a moment, take the feeling out of your way. Put it on a shelf somewhere – you can always bring it back later.

Step forth unencumbered, free. Experience how your body feels without the weight of the feeling. See how open your mind can be when it is no longer entangled in the web of emotion.

Let’s return to the problem you started with. Now that emotions are out of the picture, how do things look different? What new choices come to mind? How does your body feel?

Even if this process seems difficult for you, imagine what it would be like to be free of feelings. Take any problem at any time. Look for the emotion in it, then put it aside. Immediately, you experience clarity, openness, and a fresh perspective.

Living Clarity

Difficult feelings can be like old friends who have overstayed their welcome. You are used to them being around, but you don’t really enjoy their company.

Know this, in your heart of hearts: Feelings are temporary, and you can let them go. They don’t have to guide and define you. Moment after moment, you can find the place in you that is free of emotion. And when you do, live there happily with clarity, intelligence, and love.

Are you stuck in emotions? Can you put them aside? I’d love to hear…

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The Art of Practical Happiness

practical_happiness
“Let the beauty of love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
~Rumi

There is no doubt about it…I’m happy. Stop me at any random moment, and there it is – the deepest acceptance, heart full, primed for joy.

It’s not like I’m grinning from ear to ear in every moment. I’m simply happy. I don’t worry about the future or fret over what is happening now. I’m just here, present, awake to things as they are. To say that I go with the flow is an understatement.

Letting Go

The key to happiness is to let go. I have found that when I let go of ruminating, defending, and getting caught up in the drama of situations and relationships, happiness is here. It’s the most natural thing and miraculous at the same time. Right here and available by letting go.

This is not to say that troubles don’t arise. The other day, I woke up with a cloud of irritation over my head. I knew I could have easily been short with the people around me, which would have created disharmony and tension for sure.

But I was consciously aware of the mood that was paying me a visit, and set an intention to be kind in my interactions. I felt the urge to snap back, but chose kindness instead. Poof! Irritation gone.

Effortlessly Being Happy

I don’t fight unhappiness so I can make sure that I stay happy – it takes much less effort than that. I have seen that what I thought was true about myself and the world is actually false, and I’ve completely lost interest in it.

Anything personal – needs, demands, expectations, rules about how the world should work, what people should do – I just don’t give it any attention. I function in the world as a person with a name, age, gender, and appearance, but what I really am is peace.

I trust completely, which is why I don’t need to rely on thoughts, or even feelings, anymore. I know that the intelligence and clarity of life is perfect, and that’s where I live. Nothing personal to this illusion of “me” matters.

Practical Happiness

Even if you don’t consciously know this experience I’m describing, you can try it on to see what it feels like. Here is a window into my experience of daily life.

Ignore thoughts. It’s taken a few years, but I really see that about 98% of the thoughts that appear in my mind aren’t useful. They’re gibberish with no meaning. So I don’t pay attention to them. Play with that just for a short time, and you will see problems vanish.

See everyone and everything as yourself. It is true at the absolute level of reality that there is no separation. The essence of you is the same as the essence of everyone and everything you see. Live like this for 30 seconds, and you will be in awe of the magnificence that you can’t get away from if you tried. (And sometimes we try very hard.)

When you are unsure or confused, stop and listen. Don’t get panicky, scrambling to figure anything out. It won’t help. Instead, stop, bring your attention back to presence, and just listen. This is how I order food in a restaurant and plan many of my days. I check in and let myself be guided.

Feel urges, but don’t act on them. Remember when I was irritated? I didn’t act on the urge. Stay very conscious when you are triggered, and make the choice you really want that benefits everyone. I know it’s hard, but do it anyway. Have happiness be your highest priority always, and the rest falls right into place.

The body is your friend. When you are distracted by unhappy stories, bring your attention into the body. Just let the physical sensations be as they are. They will ground your attention as you return to sanity. This was helpful for me for a long time, but only rarely necessary now.

When you are triggered, always shift your attention to being aware. Thoughts, feelings, tendencies, stories, these are all objects that arise in awareness. Let them go, and simply be aware. Awareness is your true nature – boundless, completely at peace, infinitely loving. Live here in glorious surrender. That’s what I do.

Be fully conscious. In order to be fully conscious, you need to let go of all ideas about anything and everything. Pay attention to no mental activity whatsoever. In the silence, there is no body, no separate you, no space, no time. All division falls away, and only This remains – aliveness, awareness, being.

Happiness isn’t mysterious, and it is more available to you than you could ever imagine. It’s right here. I’m not special or extraordinary for knowing this. If I’ve had one blessing it is that the fire to know abiding happiness grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, and for that I am on my knees in gratitude.

How to know the art of practical happiness? Follow what is most alive in you. Then live it up in joy and celebration.

Comments? Questions? I’d love to hear…