Blog - Dr. Gail Brenner

Finding the Gift in Boredom

“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.”
~Paulo Coelho

It descends like a cloud before you know it. Your mind turns to mush. You stare into space. Your focus goes out the window. Your body feels like a heavy sack. And there you are…bored out of your mind.

Boredom is one of those experiences that dulls your engagement with life. It’s a mindless state that blocks your creativity, enthusiasm, and interest. As teacher Francis Lucille says, it’s a rejection of the present moment.

Let boredom go unchecked, and who knows how long you’ll sit there in a fog. But come alive to your boredom, and everything changes in less than a nanosecond.

Waking Up to Boredom

As paradoxical as it might sound, what if you got interested in your experience of boredom? Instead of being bored, you shift your attention away from boredom to being here, aware in this present moment.

Instead of being lost, now you can study what you’re experiencing. And that’s when things get interesting.

Say you’re fascinated by Josephine Bonaparte, wife of Napolean (like I am). What do you do with that passion? You read everything about her. You become knowledgeable about the social and historical context in which she lived. You learn about the personalities of the people in her life and the roles thay played.

You put your thirst for information into practice.

Now, what if you found your own experience of boredom to be equally fascinating? You might ask questions like:

What is happening in my mind and thought process when I’m bored?
What emotions are present, maybe suppressed by the boredom? (for example, fear or anger)
What does my body feel like when I’m bored?
What happens to my energy?
What do I feel like doing or not doing when I’m bored?
How do I show up in my relationships?
What triggers boredom?

Now that you’ve shown interest in boredom, where did it go? When you’re fascinated by boredom, it just doesn’t trap you anymore.

Finding Your Aliveness Again

This post was inspired by my own experience being bored while I was trying to write it. I “woke up” to realize I had shut down and somehow disappeared. But instantaneously, I was back!

I took a breath and said, “Hello, boredom.” Then I reconnected with my desire to communicate what would be most helpful for you, the lovely one reading this.

When you let boredom have its way with you, you’re consumed by it. But when you step back to find some space from it, all of a sudden you’ve found your aliveness again. It’s always been here, only temporarily obscured.

No longer stuck in the cloud of boredom, you’ve accessed a new, expanded state of consciousness—you might call it clarity. Fresh options become apparent that before were hidden.

In your full aliveness, what are you moved to do? What is most vital to you in this moment? What is calling you?

Next time you’re bored, remember this: the aliveness that is you is here, so incredibly present, overflowing everywhere. You’re just a shift of attention away. Wake up to the moments of your life, and see what begins to unfold…

What About You?

What do you notice when you come alive to boredom? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading this by email, please click here to comment.

Always in love,

Gail

Note: I’ll be offering a half-day retreat on October 18 in Santa Barbara. Please click here for details and to register.

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A Simple Experiment with Profound Results

“What you are looking for is within you
Fall silent a moment and contemplate what that means…
You lack nothing.”
~Prem Rawat

I know, it’s hard sometimes. Things get you down, and you can’t seem to find your way out. Life seems blah, and you’re thinking there’s got to be a better way.

Well, there is. And one way to access it is to “act as if.” Whatever you want for yourself, you act as if it’s already the case. You can act as if you’re confident, completely fulfilled, or free of attachments to painful emotions.

“Acting As If” Transforms

Acting as if might sound like a superficial technique that couldn’t possibly help you. But I’m not into superficial, and acting as if can be profound and transformative.

We so easily get in our own way. Our attachments to distorted thought patterns and unhappy feelings sabotage our ability to fully express ourselves in life. It’s so pervasive that we might not even realize these habits are hijacking us. But they are.

Acting as if is a way through these habits that have never served us. It opens us to the deepest fulfillment.

Let’s take feeling inadequate as an example. If this is your reality, you repeat negative thoughts in your mind about how you’re not good enough. These thoughts cause you to conclude that you won’t be able to accomplish the goals you want before you even try.

Then you might spend your time thinking about the disappointing things that happened in your past that you blame for your inadequacy. It’s a repetitive cycle that keeps you locked into negativity.

And how do you feel if you think you’re inadequate? Anxious, downtrodden, hopeless. These thoughts and feelings inhabit your body, constricting your breathing, weighing down your posture, and silently diminishing your health. They get into your cells and distort the pathways of connections in your brain.

But what if you were to act as if you’re confident? You have to get into it, thinking the way a confident person would think, feeling the way they would feel, and letting the brain and body rearrange so you get the visceral, in-the-body experience of feeling confident.

If you were confident, how would you walk and stand? What would you say and how would you say it? What would you do when self-critical thoughts happen to appear in the mind? How would it be to go out into the world with your whole being screaming, “Confident!”

See how acting as if can be a powerful way to break through false identities?

It Accesses Your Deepest Knowing

And I’ll let you in on a little secret. Acting as if is actually a trick to get you to connect with your inner intelligence, the wisest you who already knows how to be free and happy.

If you’re feeling inadequate, how do you know how to act as if you’re confident? Where did that information come from?

What a surprise to realize that something in you already knows how to let go of inadequacy and be your full confident self. The prompt to act as if is a bit of a sneaky way to guide you into sanity and clear seeing. It takes you out of your limited, programmed ways of being and delivers you right into the vast potential that is always available to you.

If you’ve been sitting around waiting for life to bring you what you’re hoping for, you might want to experiment with acting as if. Rather than wishful thinking, investigate to see if what you want might already be more of a possiblity than you ever imagined.

Your Turn to Act As If

Here are some suggestions. Choose one or more of these, or come up with your own. Reflect on what it would take to act as if and experience it deeply in your mind, heart, body, and spirit.

Get out of your chair, and make it like you’re auditioning for the role of your life. Because you are. When you act as if, you’re shedding ideas about yourself that aren’t true and inhabiting the expansive potential of you.

Act as if: you’re wise.

If you were wise, what would your thought process be like?
How would you make decisions?
What would you do when things don’t go as planned?

Act as if: you care about yourself.

How would caring about yourself play out in your thoughts, actions, choices, and emotions?
What would you do if you were in a situation you knew wasn’t right for you?
What would your daily life look like?

Act as if: you’re ready for healthy relationships.

Who would you choose for your partner and your friends?
Which of your relationships would need to end?
How would you show up with others?
What would you think about?
What would you do when you feel scared or angry?

Act as if: you’re free of the pain from your past.

Without being held back by your past, what would you do differently in your life?
What would you stop doing?
How would you relate to strong feelings that arise in you?

Act as if: you’re so much bigger than your imagined limits.

How would you feel in your body?
What would you do with limiting thoughts?
How would you know what actions to take?
How would you relate to other people?

Back to Basics

You may be an expert at acting as if you’re miserable, disappointed, and ungrateful. But what if you made a different choice? I love acting as if because it immediately busts the false identities that hold you back.

Maybe you can entertain the possibility that you’re already whole, healed, and totally fabulous. Maybe you are way more knowledgeable about being fully alive in your life than you ever imagined.

Act as if the light of universal presence shines through you—because it does. Act as if you’re capable of making wise choices—because you are if you’re willing to be honest with yourself. Act as if you don’t let fear get in your way—because who you really are is way bigger than fear.

What happens to all those self-imposed limits you thought you were stuck with? They miraculously dissolve, and here you are, with a sweet, knowing smile on your face.

What About You?

Try acting as if. In the comments, tell us what quality you’re acting as if you had. How did the experiment go? I’d love to hear… If you’re reading this by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

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The Only Choice, the Sacred Choice

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.”
from The Guest House, by Rumi

It came over me like a whisper, then I realized I was afraid. I felt that familiar flutter everywhere in my body, and I was uncomfortable. I watched the fear intently as it crawled into my mind, begging my thoughts to start spinning: “What is going on?? Why am I feeling like this? Maybe it’s because of that email I just got. Maybe something’s wrong. I want this to go away.”

I saw it all like a perfectly constructed scene in a film. This feeling was designed to make me suffer, formulated to pull my attention into the fear. I felt the barrier rising, disconnecting me from the world and the people around me. I saw how easily I could become absorbed in it.

The choice was so clear, obvious to me as the scene unfolded. I could jump into the anxiety and make it my reality. It would surely ruin my day. Who knows when it would end?

Or I could stay…unmoving…watchful…present. And that’s what I did.

I became aware of a vast, open, welcoming space in my being, and felt the sensations. I invited them in with so much tenderness, unafraid of what might happen. Every single one could be there as long as it wanted—I was there for it, standing as loving acceptance.

I felt relief deep in my body and beyond. I totally gave up fighting what was present. And I relaxed with it, into it. It was the reality of the moment, so who am I to resist it? I received it like a precious gift. Something in me just knew that this was the right way to be in this moment.

I wasn’t aware that things had shifted. Before I realized it, I was talking with friends, enjoying myself and fully engaged. The fear? It’s now just a memory that I’m sharing with you.

Although this experience changed quite quickly, it wasn’t always like that for me. I used to be loaded with fear and embroiled in a compulsive, fear-filled mind. But, over the years, I took each moment and made the sacred choice. The fear has now mostly subsided, but still, each time it appears is like the first time. I receive it fully. I welcome it like a homecoming.

If you’re stuck in any emotion that revisits you, try this. Drop the judgment, and forget the avoidance of it. These are stepping stones on the road to suffering.

Instead, stop. Breathe. Be loving, open space for this appearance in your body. Receive it like a gift, over and over.

Even the ones that have lived in you a long time, the ones that have caused you pain and brought your enjoyment of life to a halt. Welcome them in, too. Expect nothing, and you’ll be amazed at the ease that’s possible.

What happens when you’re simply present with your emotions, without the story? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading this by email, please click here to comment.

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The Beauty and Ease of Accepting Things as They Are

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds
~e.e. Cummings

Not accepting things as they are is a fight against reality. It’s kind of crazy, really. Say that someone said something hurtful to you. You can wish they hadn’t said it forever, but the fact remains the same—they said what they said.

Say you did something you regret. You can wish you hadn’t done it, which could keep you stuck for a long time, but here’s the truth—you did what you did.

The problem with wishful thinking, wanting things to be different than they are, is that it’s agitating. It resists what’s real and keeps you ruminating and analyzing to try to make sense of it so that you feel better. But it doesn’t work, and it won’t bring you happiness.

It’s liberating to know that there’s another way: accepting things as they are.

What Is Acceptance?

Acceptance isn’t passive. It doesn’t mean that you’re resigned to a life of unhappiness, just putting up with things. Yes, you may accept that you feel anxious or eat too much junk food or you’re in a relationship that’s not working. But it doesn’t mean you’re stuck in these situations forever.

Accepting things as they are is a beautiful starting point that opens up possibilities you may have never considered.

It lets you build a foundation for your choices and actions based on truth.
You’re authentic and real rather than pretending or living in a fantasy about how you wish things were.
It offers clear seeing and insight that you’ve overlooked by turning a blind eye or keeping your head in the sand.
It empowers you.
It’s the path to a deep understanding that can guide you to the part of you that is whole, free, and untroubled.

Acceptance is the opposite of avoidance or denial. It’s a full-hearted, all-encompassing, enthusiastic and curious “Yes” to things as they are. It is open, welcoming, and ultimately freeing—like a breath of fresh air.

Are you resisting life? Then consider dipping your toe into the ocean of acceptance. It’s a beautiful place to be.

How to Accept

Acceptance is taking an honest look at things as they are right now. You let go of judging or interpreting. You don’t need to add the layer of feeling like a failure or victim because of the situation. Rather than turning away from what is, you turn toward it and receive what’s here with great compassion and understanding.

Here are some examples:

You can live forever waiting for an apology, or you can accept that it probably won’t happen.
You can continue with a habit that doesn’t serve you, say you drink too much, or you can accept that this is the reality and explore the underlying feelings.
You can keep procrastinating, or you can admit that you’re scared.
You can wish you had made different choices, or you can accept that you’re in the situation you’re in.

The Sacred Shift to Accepting

I invite you to feel into the profound shift that acceptance brings. Let’s use the first example to illustrate: you feel someone has wronged you and you’re waiting for an apology that’s not coming.

If this is you’re mindset, you’ve given up your power to the other. You’ve decided that the only way you can let go of the situation is to receive an apology, which is something you can’t control. And what is your inner experience? Bitter, sad, and resentful. You’re caught in thinking about the past a lot, and you’re fully missing everything that’s available to you now—the beauty and wonder of this now moment.

Shifting into acceptance, here’s what changes:

You acknowledge what happened in the past and you realize you’re keeping the past alive in your thoughts and feelings. So what’s true right now are your thoughts and feelings about the past, not what actually happened.

New possibility: Instead of repeating the same story over and over in your mind, can you welcome these feelings, lovingly, just as they are? Can you see that, in their pure form, they are just the energy of physical sensation and let them move through?

You accept that the other person has not apologized. No one knows if that will change in the future, but for now, the apology isn’t happening.

New possibility: You thought you needed this apology to feel at peace, but now you’re open to exploring other ways that you can control.

You realize you can be present with your reactions.

New possibility: You change how you relate to this whole problem by finding the deepest space of acceptance within to let your present moment experience be as it is. You notice that your experience comes and goes, but this space is always here, deeply accepting, your sanctuary.

No longer stuck on this problem, you’re available to the rest of life. It’s been here all along!

New possibility: You realize you can enjoy yourself, and you’re receptive to what’s here, seeing yourself, situations, and other people with fresh eyes.

When you decide to accept, you enter the world of authentic living. You see things as they are. You consider your options and choose wisely. You’re no longer willing to stay stuck.

And acceptance brings with it some secret, surprising side effects. Make it a practice to accept what is, and effortlessly, you’ll feel relief. What used to bother you is dealt with immediately. You’re spacious, peaceful, open to others, kind to yourself. And you find clarity in your choices moving forward.

You can spend your energy denying, defending, and avoiding, or you can accept. The choice is in your hands…

What About You?

Have you been denying and avoiding? What have you discovered when you shift to accepting? Please share in the comments—it helps everyone… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to comment.

Note: Please click here for information on our next live meeting in Santa Barbara.

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10 Life-Changing Ways to Move Through Shame

“Shame is a soul eating emotion.”
~C.G. Jung

“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.”
~Brené Brown

Shame. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling. So uncomfortable that you may not even want to read this post. You think that if you leave it hidden in the shadows, outside of conscious awareness, maybe, just maybe, you can pretend it’s not there.

But it is. And for some of us, it’s dug in deep.

If shame stays where it is, unseen and unexplored, it will continue to affect you. How? It’s behind the self-critical voice in your head, many unsatisfying dynamics in relationships, feelings of lack and unworthiness, and choices that keep you from fully living.

Shame is so personal! It’s a painful feeling of humiliation—that you’ve done something wrong or that there’s something disgraceful or embarrassing about you. It’s the secret emotion that can sit in you like a poison.

And the last thing you want to do is bring it out in the open. You think that all that will do is highlight your worst fears about yourself.

But here’s the possibility for you—the light that can begin to untangle shame:

If you explore it skillfully, if you navigate shame with wisdom and heart, you find tenderness, compassion, courageous vulnerability, and the relief that comes from no longer hiding from yourself—or keeping yourself hidden from others and the world.

You move from feeling oh, so separate and alienated to being more at ease with yourself and your own experience. The boundaries that disconnect you from everyone and everything begin to fall away. Almost like being born anew, you are open, light, and available to life.

You can make the choice to let your pain rule you by keeping it in the shadows. Or you can befriend, explore, and welcome it into the light of conscious awareness. How? Here are 10 potentially life-changing ways to move through shame.

Getting to Know Shame

1. Be a courageous explorer

If you’re just beginning to explore shame, you’re going into foreign territory. Just like the ancient adventurers who took to the sea not knowing what they would find, be courageous, curious, and open.

And when it comes to pain, discover the most compassionate place within you to receive it.

Practice: Set the stage for your exploration of shame. Bring your attention inside, and touch into the qualities of curiosity, wonder, openness, and compassion that are natural to who you are. Find them, then stay with feeling them for a while.

2. Find the gap

You might be very used to feeling shame, but you may not know it well. In fact, you may have been trying to avoid it at all costs because it’s so painful.

But here we take a different approach by befriending your experience. What is shame exactly? How does it feel? How does it appear in your thoughts about the past and yourself?

Answering these questions requires you to step back from being completely consumed by shame so you can gain some psychological distance. It’s the gap that begins to set you free. Imagine you’re studying an object you’ve never seen before to figure out what it does. Just like that, create a bit of space between you and your experience of feeling shame.

Now you’re relating to shame in a new way. You can study it, inquire about it, and see what it is—this feeling that’s had such an impact on you.

Practice: Find a small gap between you and shame. See that you can observe your experience and be curious about what you discover.

3. What’s the story?

Shame doesn’t appear from nowhere. It’s a form of conditioning that inhabits your mind, heart, body, and spirit. Maybe you were somehow made to feel ashamed of yourself when you were young – ashamed of who you are, your level of intelligence, your body.

There might be a story of shame that you’ve carried for a long time, but it’s actually a role you’ve taken on that is optional. Start to tell yourself that this shame story doesn’t have to define you.

Remember that who you are is not this story. Your essence is whole, not separate from anything, and boundlessly free.

Practice: Stand up and feel yourself in that familiar story of shame. Yes, right now! Just try it. Now, take a big step to one side and leave the story behind. Feel yourself minus the story. This is the possibility for you.

4. How does shame live in your body?

Every emotion has a physical component to it. Getting to know shame includes knowing how it lives in your body.

It may take some time to discover the physical experience of shame because it’s become so commonplace to you. Get quiet and bring your attention to your body. Then notice any physical sensations and places of numbness. You don’t need to do anything about them.

This is an exercise in simply meeting in open awareness what has been there anyway. It’s about making friends with the physical part of shame.

When you realize you don’t need to live the story of shame and you become aware of the sensations, the heaviness of this identity begins to dissolve. It’s the road to freedom.

Practice: As much as possible, a hundred times a day if necessary, bring your attention into your body and just be with whatever is happening. There’s no need to do anything; just simply be.

Going Deeper

5. How you speak to yourself

Our inner self-talk can be so painfully harsh. And if you look at the root of what drives it, you’ll find shame, that feeling that there’s something terribly wrong—or worse—about you. Once you begin meeting the shame directly—by not being so captured by the story and feeling the physical sensations—this way of speaking to yourself starts to not even make sense anymore.

Let’s tell the truth. Are you actually that incompetent, inadequate so-and-so you think you are? If you look at these inner statements with the objective eyes of a scientist, you’ll be able to punch holes in them immediately.

By now, this negative self-talk is a habit that needs your attention, and the more intelligent focus you give it, the more it will unravel. Commit to recognizing this voice and letting its reign over you diminish.

Practice: Start by assuming that this damaging inner voice isn’t accurate and doesn’t serve. This is the truth. At least once every day, turn your attention away from these self-critical thoughts and let them float on by like clouds. Be the sky—vast, empty, and serene. Start to live here as much as possible and the critical thoughts begin to lose their power.

6. Know how and why you isolate

Living with shame is lonely and isolating. It makes you believe that no one would want to get close to you, which justifies your pushing them away. How do you do that? By being critical and judgmental of others.

Recognizing the urge to isolate is essential to moving through shame. Because it is a sign that your shame identity has taken charge. When you find yourself judging others and feeling separate, this is your golden moment to begin asking questions about your experience. What story do you believe? How do you feel in your body?

Not judging shame and welcoming it instead is the beginning of forming a new, healthy relationship—with yourself. Then you don’t need to be critical of others or push them away. You’re more available, authentic, and courageously vulnerable. And others will love you for it.

Practice: Recognize when you judge others and realize this is about you: it makes you feel separate. Is shame at the root of this need to separate? Inquire into what you’re thinking and feeling. Realize the possibility of a true connection with others.

7. Is there fear there?

Shame and fear often go hand in hand. You’re afraid of being seen for who you are. And at the same time, you fear being alone. You’re afraid you’re damaged goods, doomed to a life of misery.

As you get to know shame, become aware of various fears that may be lurking. Bring fear, too, out of the shadows and meet it lovingly.

Practice: Check to see if fear is present. Let down your resistance and allow it in, especially how it appears in your body. Like a long-lost child returning home, embrace the fear. Let it be there for as long as it wants to.

Moving Forward

8. Find the strength in being vulnerable

Vulnerability gets a bad rap these days. But what it actually offers you is the relief from having to hide from yourself, the simplicity of just being as you are without having to change anything.

Whatever you feel is your present moment experience. Resisting it creates endless suffering, and welcoming it in is the path to inner peace. This is the medicine for the secret of shame.

Be as you are. Not in the story of who you think you are that is denigrating and destructive—you’ve lived there long enough. Instead, shift your attention away from these thoughts, and allow your current experience as it is. These sensations…this breath…touching…hearing…looking…speaking…

It’s so relaxing because you don’t have to hide or grasp. You can just be.

Practice: Begin to get comfortable being with whatever you are experiencing in any given moment. Start with just a few moments until you see that it’s OK, that whatever you’re afraid will happen, won’t. Then, more and more, let yourself be.

9. Sacred honesty—with yourself

When you live in shame, you are constantly lying to yourself. You draw yourself into a trance that makes you believe you are inadequate, unworthy, and just plain wrong. The truth? It’s just plain inaccurate.

Healing from shame invites radical honesty. Are you up for it?

Whenever you are feeling separate and lacking, question your experience. Find the gap (#2 above), and recognize the thoughts and feelings in your body that have taken hold.

Then realize that who you are is so much more than this identity. To be perfectly honest, you are whole, unbroken, and infinitely at peace. Keep returning here. Become more and more transparent so the light of truth shines through.

Practice: Investigate your direct experience with a discerning eye to see what is true and what is false. Live in the truth of yourself as whole, full, pure, and capable.

10. Wide open heart

Shame is all about limitation, holding back, and keeping yourself separate and isolated. And where is your heart? Wounded, stuck, and closed.

Begin to live with a heart wide open. Move your attention outside of your head to notice the beauty and tenderness around you. It’s been there all along, you just haven’t noticed. Let yourself be touched by the simple experiences of daily life.

Shame is a filter that keeps you from life, and dissolving the filter leaves you available and receptive. Without even trying, you begin to notice love and appreciation. Where before you held back, now you engage.

Recovering from shame opens you to being fully alive!

Practice: Find within you the courage to begin to open your heart. Instead of being absorbed in shame, experience things—and people—with fresh eyes. When you notice that you are closed, open…open…open…

What About You?

Are you caught in shame? Believe me, you are not alone. Have you discovered how to move through it? I’d love to hear…and if you’re reading by email, please click here to comment.

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5 Welcoming Ways to the Peace You Long For

“Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever.”
~Jack Kerouac

Awakening to your true nature means that you realize the absolute truth about yourself. You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are not the limited, separate person who lacks, strives, needs, and defends.

You realize with every cell of your being that you are the endless peace that includes everything. You know that your true nature is love itself.

You don’t become anything different. The only change that happens is that you consciously recognize what has been true all along. Your attention was just too distracted to see it.

When you know this truth, you realize that you are, and always have been, effortlessly aware and at ease. While you’ve been busy resisting your experience, wanting things to be different than they are, there’s been an undercurrent of okayness with everything that you’ve simply overlooked.

Just take a moment to be still. Can you feel it?

Imagine that your whole life has been played out on a stage. You’re in the audience, maybe enjoying the drama, but you’re able to walk out of the theater undisturbed by it. The deepest part of you has watched your life story play out, but it’s pure. It has never been touched by anything that’s happened.

Knowing this, you’re in the world, but you don’t take it all that seriously. You see through emotions so they don’t grab you. You no longer spend energy defending, denying, or looking elsewhere for happiness. You’re simply here—fully alive in your humanity, fresh and innocent, free and receptive to what life offers.

How do you come to consciously know this truth? It’s revealed in its own time. But don’t wait until the clouds part and grace illuminates your true nature. Orient your whole life to living beyond your limited ideas of yourself and the world. Be persistent in your daily life by inclining yourself toward peace.

1. Be Deliberately Aware

Living unconsciously leaves you churning in automatic habits. You play out conditioning without really knowing what you’re doing or why. It’s an agitated way to be.

The medicine for this dis-ease is to be deliberately aware. Take some time every day to simply, consciously be alive to your present moment experience. It might look like:

10 minutes or more of daily meditation where you sit as open space, allowing your experience to come and go;
Take a breath when you realize an emotion is present and welcome it, especially helpful when you feel stressed, frustrated, or defeated;
At the end of every day, reflect on how habitual patterns caught hold – what feelings were behind eating that bag of cookies when you didn’t want to, working to get someone’s attention, ruminating about things that make you sad or worried?

Our culture beckons us to distraction and busyness. Whenever you remember, do the radical thing by just being still and aware.

2. Open Your Mind

Become very familiar with the beliefs you hold that structure and resist reality. Then play with letting them go.

What if you didn’t expect anyone to do anything? What if you forgot to believe that you’re fearful and unworthy? What if things are just fine as they are without your trying to control them?

Every day, keep inviting your mind to open…open…open. Let it be clear like the sky. Entertain the possibility that all this thinking is unnecessary.

3. Get to Know Your Body

Many of us live in our heads, consumed by trying to figure everything out. But there is a whole realm of your experience that you’re missing.

The experience of all emotions and unconscious habits includes sensations in your body. While you’re worrying about all the things you need to do, there are places in your body that are tense and contracted. If you feel sad, your body may be heavy, dark, or vacant.

Simply experiencing physical sensations supports you to break through automatic habits. Always include them when you become aware of programmed ways of being.

How do you do it? Notice and consciously experience the physical sensations that appear. When?

When you realize you’ve been engaged in a tsunami of thinking;
When you’re consumed by emotion;
When you’re bored, lost, or confused;
Anytime.

Open to all of your experience with great awareness. It’s delicious to be alive to what’s actually happening. And, if you stay with it, it brings you home to the ease of pure presence.

4. Don’t Know

How often do you show up like a robot, saying the same words you’ve always said, expecting the same reactions from others? Try this instead.

Show up fresh, without knowing what will happen. Make the space for things to unfold naturally, not as you expect them to.

Stand before a loved one forgetting any history;
Be with someone who triggers you with your mind on hold and your heart open;
Be in a familiar environment, seeing it for the first time;
Taste, touch, see, and hear things freshly;
Wake up in the morning and spend a few hours not knowing what you’ll do or say;
Open to the possibility of experiencing awe and wonder in the simple things of ordinary life.

5. Notice Awakened States

Knowing who you are is the experience of effortless relaxation, ease, peace, happiness, joy, creativity, and fulfillment. But there’s no need to wait. If you tell the truth, aren’t there moments of these experiences that naturally occur in your daily life now?

Awakening is already who you are—whether you consciously know it or not. So the simple act of noticing what’s already true aligns your mind, body, and heart with the source of all, which is life.

As you go through your day,

Notice, and enjoy, when things go well;
Recognize when your heart opens in the face of beauty, tenderness, and love;
Be appreciative when creative ideas appear;
Surrender your desires and dissatisfactions into peace and happiness.

Just like the true nature of a wave is ocean, your true reality is the infinite splendor of the universe. Remind yourself that nothing is personal to you—it all appears by grace. Then you’ll bow down in gratitude to everything.

What About You?

What is it like to come home to yourself? How do you return? I’d love to hear…

And if you’re reading this by email, please click here to comment and to visit GailBrenner.com.

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A Lovely Interview—Soul-Style

I love being interviewed. So I was happy to participate when longtime reader, Lexie Oneca, invited me to respond to some questions. Lexie blogs at ChicagoNow, where this interview was originally published. And if you have any more questions for me, please feel free to share in the comments.

Love,
Gail

20 Questions — Soul-Style

1. Who are you?

I’m assuming you mean this in the conventional sense. I’m Gail Brenner, PhD, psychologist, blogger, author.

2. What do you do?

My work offers a bridge between common psychological problems that people experience and true spiritual understanding about the nature of reality. I’m most interested in the ways that people get stuck and helping them to shed false identities so they can know how beautiful they really are. From that foundation, I see people individually, I facilitate a group with the theme of living in truth, and I write. My forthcoming book is, “The Way of Yes: Finding Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life.”

3. Why do you do it?

I find that trying to answer any “why” question brings a contraction to my mind as it searches for an answer. I do what I feel moved to do, what gives me joy. It’s natural.

4. How did you find your way to it?

Psychology has been an interest of mine since the beginning of college. I was always looking for answers to deeper questions and always wanted to figure out how to be truly happy. Traditional therapy didn’t help much. But I was eventually led to teachers and teachings that showed me the way. I was on fire to know the truth about how things are — it was the whole focus of my time and activities.

5. How do you feel when you do it?

Very much in the flow. “I” am out of the way, so there is just the emerging of whatever happens, with no resistance. It’s very spontaneous and light.

6. What is the joy that keeps you up at night?

Simply being, ideas I want to write about, ideas for new projects.

7. What is one thing you still have to practice every day?

There’s nothing I feel I need to practice every day. Sometimes I’ll feel stressed, which is a sign that my mind has left the present and has created an imaginary urgency about what needs to be done. It’s an opportunity to unwind that thought pattern and return to the ordinary peaceful state of being. And when I’m triggered in interactions with my partner, I get to stop and feel the frustration and what’s behind it.

8. What are you always searching for?

I used to search for lasting peace and happiness. In the way I experience things now, I no longer search for anything. There isn’t one thing missing, nothing to add to make this moment better. It’s living in loveliness.

9. What have you found after searching?

Fulfillment, abundance, deep rest, effortless peace, ease of being, joy — all without end or boundary.

10. How do you stay connected to your inner core of peace?

I am not separate from my inner core of peace. I know that who I am is not this person with a name, history, gender and personality. I have discovered that believing that I am this separate individual was the source of unhappiness. When these false ideas fall away, I know that I am spacious, whole, transparent, the life force itself. And, at the heart of it, all forms — me, others, objects — are this as well.

The fundamental fabric of the universe is peace — you can’t get away from it, although your mind can be very good at convincing you otherwise. There is only life experiencing itself everywhere. It may appear that there are distinct forms, but pure reality is undivided. Knowing this is peace itself.

11. What makes you feel led or guided?

I have given up the idea that “I know.” So I surrender all my personal needs and desires. I listen and let myself be led.

12. What do you do when you can’t hear God (or the Universe, or Source, or your intuition) speaking to you?

I stop and find inner silence. I listen with no expectation whatsoever and with a great willingness to act on what I hear.

13. What is the difference between resistance and fear?

Resistance is saying “no” to what is. Usually, people resist because they’re afraid to allow what’s true to be as it is. This is the dynamic behind compulsive thinking and behavior patterns.

14. Where does the idea come from that we are broken, unworthy or undeserving?

It’s conditioned usually from past experiences. If unexamined, it becomes an identity that is so painful for many people. Investigating this identity reveals that it is made up of mental stories, feelings, and physical sensations. It’s learned and temporary — not real or natural — and it actually doesn’t define who you are.

15. How do you move past that to connect with others on a soul level?

There are two ways. One involves a process of investigating these thought/feeling patterns until you realize that they’re false. Unexamined, they have power. When you untangle them, they start to collapse. Like a scientist, you step back from them to see what they’re actually made of — thoughts, feelings, physical sensations — and how they operate. Then you begin to have a choice to not let the pattern control you.

The second is the direct way. You shift your attention away from any thoughts, feelings and sensations, and you realize that these arise from aware presence, simply being. Living here, the idea of a problem or identity doesn’t exist. There’s only peace. Once the pattern loses power, you are available to “others” with nothing in the way.

16. How do you stop and pull back when you notice you’re analyzing or comparing rather than using your “beginner’s mind”?

Sometimes I feel the pain of contraction, fear, or separation that comes from mental activity such as analyzing or comparing. For me, it’s a signal to stop and return attention back to its source.

17. If fear is just the ego talking, an illusion, what is the quickest way to clearing it?

Fear is an illusion, but until you know that directly in your own experience (not just as a mental concept), it’s asking for your attention. Otherwise, you skip over it, which leaves it still powerful and influencing your behavior.

Here’s how to approach it. Abandon the story about it and even the label of fear. Let your attention be one with the energy and physical sensations that you feel. Be completely allowing of the physical sensations with no expectation whatsoever that things will change. The sensations may still be present, but what you call “fear” is seen to be non-existent.

When you meet any emotion as friendly attention meeting physical sensation, the angst around it dissolves. Don’t worry about doing this quickly. It’s not about doing, it’s being, and it happens outside of time.

18. Where is the sweet spot between accepting ourselves as we are and the simultaneous desire to learn and grow?

Acceptance is the most loving starting point. There is a great relief that comes from saying Yes to what is because you give up the fight with your own experience. And when you say yes to things as they are, it becomes clear what needs to change. Then the change comes from a place of love and non-resistance, rather than fear or lack.

Say that you think you’re overweight. If you beat yourself up about it, your weight loss experience will be a struggle. But if you accept the fact that you eat to hide from feelings, and you choose to be more aligned with the wholeness that is your natural state, then change comes with a greater sense of ease.

If you feel moved to learn and grow, then follow that impulse, but always know that the process is about coming home to yourself and realizing that nothing was ever missing.

19. How can I practically start learning to simply be “present” without constantly trying to protect myself at the same time?

If you’re protecting yourself, then fear is your present moment experience. Start there. Meet whatever is showing up in your experience with love and acceptance. This is what being present is. It’s not always rainbows and butterflies. It’s about allowing what is to be as it is, and it’s the most loving way to be.

You get to make a choice: do you want to be ruled by fear, or any other unseen emotion, or do you want to be free?

20. When I start to notice that I’m being defensive, what is the path back to kindness and self love?

Noticing that you’re being defensive is the moment of celebration because you become aware that you’ve been acting on an emotion — fear, guilt, shame, anger. In that moment, open to your experience without judgment, without a story. Notice the feelings and allow them to be. This is kindness and self love. You’ve returned home.

Any more questions—or comments? I’d love to hear…

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Recovering the Lost Art of Everyday Wonder

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
~Henry Miller

Is life feeling dull, boring, and ho-hum? Then I invite you to connect with everyday wonder. Wonder? What is that? And how do we find it in the midst of our routine daily lives?

It’s Not in Your Mind

Wonder is available to you right now, and always. It’s here in this very moment—not as a concept, but as your living reality. It’s the mixture of surprise and awe we feel when we encounter something amazing, unexpected, and new. We come alive to what’s actually here, not assuming anything or taking things for granted.

Here’s what’s important to know about wonder: it’s experienced outside the limited space of your mind. If your thoughts control you, what’s your experience? Ruminating about what you should have done, brooding about what isn’t going right, and worrying about the future.

If your attention is lost in your mind, the possibility of wonder seems a million miles away.

Every moment is always fresh and new. This moment, as it is right now, has never occurred before and never will again.

If this is so, then why do things feel familiar, routine, and stale? Where is the freshness, the wonder?

Present at the Heart of Everything

If things seem familiar to you, you’re experiencing them through the lens of your memories, not as they actually are.

Take a look at a common object, say a table. How do you know it’s a table? Your mind has learned that tables have certain characteristics that match the object you’re looking at.

What if, just for a moment, you could forget the word table and all your memories about tables? Now, take a look at it and see it directly as it is.

You’ll notice a completely different experience. You don’t know what it is or what it does. You’re curious and open. It comes alive to you!

Now, imagine forgetting all your memories, including frustrations, resentments, and worries. How would the world look to you then? What if you didn’t carry the past or future into your present moment experience?

Zen Buddhists speak of “beginner’s mind.” When we stop seeing the world through memory, we are always beginners, innocent and open, just like a child. We have a visceral experience of everything that is undeniably real. We are infinitely curious.

Problems and stresses dissolve, if only for a moment—they can’t exist without memory.

Wonder is pure experiencing without labeling, comparing, or analyzing. It’s closer and more available than you could ever imagine—at the heart of everything once you ignore your thoughts about it.

When you directly experience things, without the veil of thought, you feel them, sense them, and come to know their aliveness.

Experiencing Wonder

Life is right here, always available to be experienced as it is. In celebration of wonder, forget what you know, and try these:

Eat a raisin. Place a raisin in your palm. Experience it through your senses, not your memories, then take a glorious bite.
Close your eyes. Enter a familiar room, and close your eyes. Move around the room touching objects as you go. Be curious about what these things are actually like.
Open your heart. Be with someone you know as if for the first time. Forget all your memories, and stand before them with nothing in the way.

As you can see, wonder is less than a nanosecond away. It turns the ordinary into something absolutely extraordinary. Let yourself know nothing…and reality sparkles with everyday wonder…

A version of this article was first published on the Huffington Post.

Being One with the Effortless Unfolding of Life

“How can I be still? By flowing with the stream.”
~Lao-tzu

“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
~Walt Whitman

Whatever your preferences, needs, desires, or expectations, life unfolds with such grace. Have you noticed?

We have an amazing word to describe it—serendipity, being pleasantly surprised by events that occur, seemingly by chance. They just happen.

I’ve been the recipient of serendipity myself recently. I’d been traveling the past few weeks and had to change my plans at the last minute due to a long flight delay. Instead of having to wake up at 4:00 am, I could now sleep until 7:00—except that I bolted awake at 5:00, realizing I had mistakenly made a train reservation from London to Paris instead of Paris to London.

I figured I was out the money for the wrong train ticket until a lovely agent arranged for my refund—without laughing at me for my mistake.

Could I have planned any of that or made it happen? I could have been more diligent about checking the reservation before clicking “reserve,” but by the time I realized it, the cards had been dealt. What’s the use of criticizing my actions when they were already done? As for the rest of it…serendipity!

My point is not that we shouldn’t be responsible for our actions, check our reservations before we confirm them, or learn from our mistakes. But if we don’t spend our time crying over milk that’s already spilled (what’s your version of that?), we’re available to consciously experience the effortless unfolding of life.

It’s happening anyway. Why miss it?

The Way Things Are

This post is not about doing—it’s about noticing. We notice what is, as it is, in its absolutely exquisite perfection. And we surrender our personal need to control things.

Because not one of us could even come close to creating the marvelous array of forms and occurrences of all kinds that we call life.

As I write this, I’m on the (correct) train from Paris to London. How did this come to be—this complex set of machinery traveling at 180 miles per hour? How did it happen that the farmland I see out the window so abundantly produces just what we need? How could my “mistake” be rewarded so generously?

And what about all this beauty, this tenderness? It’s so palpable everywhere!

I know there are answers to some of these questions. But even when we know the answers, there remains the ineffable, the essence of life that just is. It can never be known by our minds, never adequately explained with thoughts or words.

It’s so here—in every breath, in everything you see, hear, and feel—the light behind all of it.

And when everything in form falls away, we realize this is who we are. Simply life itself with no separate person here making any effort to do anything. Just pure being.

Notice the Unfolding

When we resist life, we miss it. We’re caught in the should be’s and might have been’s that are filled with anxiety and sorrow. And at the same time, here is life, perfect as it is, effortlessly unfolding.

Just for a moment, can you put aside the fight with what is and just notice? It’s okay, you can let go of the self-berating and story-telling. It will still be there if you want it.

Instead, open your mind and heart, and simply notice.

What is here? (Pause…feel…experience…)
What do you know to be true?
Without judgment, where is beauty?
Without history, where is tenderness?
For a moment, consider that you may not be separate from any of it.

Being one with life…effortlessly unfolding…

What About You?

What do you notice when you allow life as it is? What gets in the way of noticing? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to share in the comments.

A few announcements: I was interviewed about relationships by Bill Weil at LovePong.com. You can listen to it by clicking here. And I’ve gotten some great feedback on this interview at InspireMeToday.com. Finally, Jenny Li Ciccone interviewed me for her free series on A Journey to Joyfulness. You can sign up here any time and watch 21 wonderful interviews, mine is on Day 8.

The Glorious Practice of Becoming Unglued

“The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything.”
~Gangaji

If you rely on your mind to tell you about how things are, you’re asking for trouble. Because it’s the mind that divides, compares, judges, and evaluates.

It tells you that you’re not good enough, that you’re better than, that you’re lacking or insufficient. It makes you feel confused and anxious in your daily life. It seduces you into thinking that others are here to threaten you, annoy you, or withhold the love you long for.

It makes your feelings spin out of control.

Misunderstanding Who You Are

When we define ourselves by our thoughts, we forget the truth: that we are immeasurably vast, that peace is our very nature, that everything is connected, arising from the one universal source.

We forget that—before any thoughts have taken hold—we are awake, aware, and fully alive. We are pure existence minus the content of thoughts, without any form or personal definition.

So how do we go from this idyllic state of infinite awareness to these limited, separate, troubled entities we believe ourselves to be? Why don’t we live what is actually true?

Through the power of conditioning, limitless awareness gets glued to thoughts.

We are told from birth that we are separate and individual.
Our personal view of ourselves is reinforced by others and by our own thoughts.
We identify as a person with a name and gender who has goals, needs, fears, and desires.
We live this misunderstanding of who we are, incorrectly believing that thoughts are the true description of our reality.

The joy of simply being present is lost as we scramble to protect ourselves. We think we are lacking so we try to find happiness in the future that never comes. We strive to get our needs fulfilled—our thoughts deterring us from realizing that everything we want is right here, perfect as it is.

The Practice: Becoming Unglued from Thinking

How to unglue your lovely essence from thinking? How to live the truth of who you are?

Lose interest in thoughts. Ignore them. Don’t take what they say as truth.

You simply let go of focusing on the energy and content of thoughts. And you realize that you are aware and free, boundless and awake. You have no personal identity to protect or condemn. It’s so relaxing, so effortless to give up focusing attention on anything.

You flow like water.

Losing interest in thoughts is an invitation for your attention to disengage from thinking. You don’t need to stop thoughts or change them. These are strategies that take way too much effort to sustain.

Instead, see that thoughts are simply appearances in the expansiveness of presence. They don’t essentially mean anything—unless you believe them.

Losing interest in thinking means you turn off the switch to everything you know. If you’re honest, it hasn’t been working for you anyway. Then,

You can’t feel inadequate.
You can’t be caught in anxious thinking.
You can’t worry about what the future might bring or ruminate about the past.
You have no capability to doubt, analyze, judge, or ponder, no repetitive mental patterns to distract you.

When you rest in presence as spacious awareness, thoughts may appear, but they don’t agitate you. They can be present or not—but either way, here you are…aware, undefended, peaceful.

This is true freedom. Reality re-created fresh in every moment. You: innocent, pristine, whole, undivided.

Always Here: Unattached and Free

The habit of thinking is so powerful that forgetting will happen as awareness again attaches to thoughts. You may miss the pure aliveness that you are many times. Be concerned only with freedom in this moment.

Your clue is that you suffer. Be patient—it takes time to erode this connection. Be kind—take a breath, and let the thoughts go, every time.

You are instantly, consciously, gloriously aware.

You already know that peace is right here waiting for you. Deep happiness, joy for no reason, gratitude that can’t be contained, wonder, awe, stunning clarity…these are glimpses of a crack in the thinking armor that lets in the light of conscious awareness.

Notice these. Live here.

The challenges of life still happen. Practical thoughts will appear just as you need them. And here you are—unattached and free.

What About You

Have you become unglued from thinking? Do you think your thoughts are real…or not? I’d love to hear…
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