Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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Are You Afraid of Being Still?

”I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”
~Alan Watts

Are you afraid of stillness? Are you afraid of being quiet, of relaxing into yourself, of being intimate with your own experience?

I understand this fear. In our culture today, we’re highly conditioned to avoid our inner experience and just keep going. Have you noticed?

We thoughtlessly carry on with our busy lives and cluttered minds. We pick up our devices way more than we need to, and we move fast (going where?), so that doing something radical—just being still—seems intensely uncomfortable.

Then we complain about being anxious and unfulfilled while we search for the relationship or material possession or exciting life circumstance that we think will make us happy.

We’re afraid of what we might find if we stop all the distraction.

Choosing the conscious life is profound and sacred. You just know there’s something more than your everyday material existence. You long for deeper connection in the here-and-now.

You won’t find what you’re looking for by searching “out there” in the world. The call of the conscious life is to stop the effort of searching…and be still.

Stop…and take a breath… Stop…and be… Stop…open and expand…

This is the gateway into intimacy with yourself and all of life.

Then you’re poised to meet what arises in a vast space of unconditional acceptance. Because this is where peace lies. The still openness of your true nature holds everything in love with no resistance.

Finally in this stillness, whatever you find is naturally welcomed—sensations in your body, places where you’re shut down, the fear and grief of your inner child, old stories that no longer fit who you are.

What an insight to realize all that’s appearing that you were too busy—or afraid—to see! This is the movement of turning inward toward yourself that sets you free.

Settling into the stillness beyond the thoughts and feelings that you notice is an undefinable sense of well-being, a silent boundless field that effortlessly is.

It feels like coming home. It’s pure being you can’t find in your feelings or in situations in the world. And it can’t be figured out in your mind.

Rest here in this boundless open space that resists nothing.

Then bring this inner stillness into the activities of your daily life, being intimate with what is.

  • Slow down and be aware of life through your senses as you wash the dishes or walk down the street.
  • Feel into the experiences of beauty, gratitude, or tenderness when they appear.
  • Take the time to listen deeply with your whole heart.

This is action infused with stillness…the sacred path of the conscious life.

Are you afraid of being still? Gently turn within. There are treasures just waiting to be discovered…

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What to Do with Sticky Patterns

“Someone, who has realized the Truth of what he is, rather than what he has been conditioned to believe he is, will be smiling in every cell of his being. It is infectious.”
~ Mooji

A powerful insight is illuminated when we realize how much our conditioned patterns interfere with our happiness.

Many of these patterns have plagued us for years, and no matter what we try, they seem to take hold and not let go.

We hear about freedom as a possibility, but we just don’t know how to find our way there. And meanwhile, the patterns keep getting played out in our minds, our emotions, our relationships, and our choices in life.

First, it’s important to understand that deeply embedded patterns usually take time to unwind. You’re expressing tremendous self-compassion when you commit to working with them as much as you can whenever they arise. Because that’s what is needed for you to experience the peace and happiness you know are possible for you.

The goal is not to get rid of these tendencies. So when they reappear—and they will—it doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. If they’ve been played out without much awareness for a long time, they are highly reinforced. This means they have a strong momentum to keep arising.

So what is your goal? To bring conscious awareness to these patterns as they are occurring and to relate to them with understanding, wisdom, and love. Because this is what softens them.

Love for the patterns? Yes, you read that right. These conditioned tendencies aren’t evil. Behind them lies a heartfelt motive to protect yourself and to avoid pain.

Do you smoke and want to stop? You’re probably trying to find a sense of inner calm. Do you feel like a victim? Maybe you’re hiding from some painful feelings. Do you put up barriers to intimacy in your relationships? You’re trying to stay safe inside.

And as convoluted as it may be, even getting angry at someone is an attempt to make them stop what they’re doing so you will feel peaceful.

As your desire for true peace and happiness grows, you realize that these patterns aren’t working for you. They had a helpful intention when they came into being years ago, but now is the sacred time when you’re ready to move beyond them.

Because you are way more magnificent than your patterns will tell you.

We sometimes don’t know where to start. So today I’d like to share with you a framework for working with these sticky patterns that I call top down and bottom up.

Top Down

Top down means that you recognize the behaviors that aren’t working for you and you experiment with changing them.

Imagine acting as if you were someone who wasn’t caught in this particular pattern. What would that person do? How would they feel inside? What would they think?

Enjoy the possibility of stepping way out of the limited reality of the pattern.

Suppose that you’re free of this pattern—what would you do differently in any given moment? Give yourself some time for this reflection, and be as specific as possible.

Then experiment with embodying your newfound insights. Take a breath and open to your present moment experience (not the reality in your head). Look into your loved ones eyes before responding. Consider the whole and not only yourself. (This is one I’m working on.)

Then take in how these new ways of being feel in your body—because they will feel different. This is what happens when deeply held patterns begin to shift.

Bottom Up

Along with top down, is bottom up. And here is the invitation to be so kind to yourself in meeting whatever emotions underlie these patterns. Often you’ll find longstanding fear, hurt and sadness, or a deep sense of lack.

If these feelings are ignored, they will continue to fuel the pattern. As you turn toward them with loving attention—a lot—they begin to get what they need. They calm down and soften. The nervous system starts to relax.

Then without the fuel of unexplored emotions, especially combined with the new behaviors you’re practicing from top down, amazingly you begin to experience that these patterns don’t have to define you.

In my experience, it feels like an inner revolution is starting to take place. I’ve felt a certain way for so long, then the pieces inside begin to move. I feel unfamiliar in my body—in a wonderful way. I’m in a space of not knowing how to be without that old identity, which feels so fresh!

There’s expansion and lightness in my whole being.

Maybe you’ve felt like a victim of your patterns for a long time. And here’s the truth: your experience of them can change. Try top down and bottom up. You’re creating the fertile soil for an inner revolution.

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Awakened Qualities—Enthusiasm

Welcome to the first article in a series called Awakened Qualities.

When you reflect on your everyday life experience, what do you notice? How do you meet the moments of your life?

Are you stewed in negative thinking and doubt? Does everything frustrate you?

Or are you peaceful, easygoing, and prone to joy?

Living in the Flow

Without the constriction of the idea of your mind-made separate self capturing your attention, infinite possibilities open up—available to you now and in every moment.

You may not be aware of it, but it’s absolutely possible to live in the flow of things as they are.

And when you don’t resist anything, life feels sane. You act from intelligence, clarity, and grace. This inner knowing is completely trustworthy.

In this series, we’ll explore some qualities of awakened living that you can experiment with in your own life.

Let the message of this article seep into the moments of your everyday life. Receive it in every cell of your being and see what opens…

The point is to bring these qualities alive in your own experience. And when you do, you’ll make the amazing discovery that everything you want may actually be here, right in this moment.

Enthusiasm—Being Divinely Inspired

Today we’ll explore enthusiasm. Every word contains its whole history, and the root of “enthusiasm” conveys being “divinely inspired, intensely eager, and rapturous.”

Take that in! Begin to imagine discovering the seed of divine inspiration and intense eagerness in the moments of your life. When have you felt that? It’s about living in the full-on Yes!

“Wow, I get to breathe right now! Wow, these colors, forms, scents, and sounds I’m experiencing right now!”

You may be wondering what I’m talking about if you’re not so enthusiastic about things in your daily life. Where is this enthusiasm? That’s because your attention is locked into the contents of your mind which tell you limiting stories about you and your life.

Where to Look

Most minds are filled with repetitive, anxiety-ridden stories, so it’s no surprise that you don’t find enthusiasm there. And you may be focusing on a situation, such as a job you’re not passionate about or struggles in your personal life. No enthusiasm there either.

You may feel bored, disappointed, or lacking. How could you possibly find rapture or divine inspiration there?

Perhaps you need to look somewhere else. Maybe this seemingly normal material world of people, objects, and events is not the whole reality of a given moment.

Maybe the way you’re thinking about these common everyday experiences is masking something deeper…

Beneath this seeming reality of the everyday human life is the energy of aliveness, the vibration of pure existence from which all things arise—here to be discovered in any moment.

It’s the open spaciousness that is aware and alive—and fully loving of everyone and everything.

Meeting the material world from this open spaciousness allows you to experience it in a whole new way.

  • Instead of saying, “I’m bored,” you meet boredom with freshness and curiosity. Maybe it has something to show me…
  • Instead of feeling stuck in a job, you go beyond the feeling of stuckness to expand your view. Is it my life path to be here? Since I’m here, how can I meet the tasks and people I encounter every day infused with love?

And eventually you live in the, “Wow, this is what I’m experiencing right now!” receiving whatever it is with full acceptance.

Beyond the Mind, Into the Moment

Can you feel into the possibility of going beyond what your mind is telling you and seeing familiar thoughts, feelings, and situations with fresh eyes? Here’s where you begin to access the Yes! to the moment.

When enthusiasm arises naturally in you, notice it and expand into it fully. It’s a divinely given experience that is a gateway into your true essence.

To find your inner enthusiasm, clear away your ho-hum ideas about things. Delete any history along with your assumption that things are familiar.

Then, with an awakened mind open like the sky, take everything in with exquisite freshness.

  • Notice the energies and sensations moving through…never before experienced!
  • What do you see, touch, and hear? So fresh!
  • Encounter people with no story of you and other. Heart bursting open!

Try bringing this perspective to the places in your life that feel shut down and flat. Or even to just what you’re experiencing right now. Shed the layers of contracted mind, and discover the Wow! at the heart of every moment.

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Start the Inner Revolution—One Moment at a Time

moment“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
~Dogen

Sometimes we make this path of inner peace way more complicated than it needs to be.

  • We think we need to try hard to get rid of the thoughts and feelings that bother us.
  • If we keep getting caught in programmed patterns, we assume we’ve made no progress.
  • If we struggle, we conclude that we’ll never be happy and awake.

We have all kinds of ideas about attaining peace—and they’re just not helpful.

These ideas are products of a mind that take you away from what you really want. They hijack your attention from the sacred unfolding of this precious moment…as it is right now….

The only time you’re suffering is now, and the only time you can find peace is now.

You won’t rest in your true nature by hoping the past will change or by wishing for a better future. These are movements of mind away from this now moment that will keep you feeling like you’re lacking what you need to be happy.

Instead, we start the inner revolution—one moment at a time.

It takes just a second to invite in a slow and conscious breath when you realize you’re swirling in a conditioned pattern.

It takes no time at all to turn inward toward yourself with openness, kindness, and care.

This is being awake in your life, and it takes place one moment at a time.

You don’t need to be concerned with changing who you are or figuring out how to solve all your problems. The true path to peace is so much simpler—and it boils down to the moment.

Right now is where we:

  • Stop feeding agitating stories about ourselves and others;
  • Open to physical sensations and energies arising in the body;
  • Check in with our five senses to orient our attention back to the present;
  • Relax into the still, endless space of being aware that holds everything in love.

This is what changes everything. We now have a new relationship with the moment that’s authentic and real.

Your mind will tell you that finding freedom now isn’t enough. It will criticize you for not practicing diligently or doing it right. But none of this is true.

Just turn inward for a moment. Then another…and another… Start the inner revolution by turning within whenever you remember.

It’s as simple as that…finding inner freedom…one moment at a time.

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Abandon Hope and Wishful Thinking

hope“The spirit is so near that you can’t see it! But reach for it… Don’t be a jar, full of water, whose rim is always dry. Don’t be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.”
~Rumi

I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you’re waiting to be happy or looking forward to the time when you’ll finally feel better about yourself and your life, then you’ll be waiting for a veeery long time.

You’re caught in a cycle of hope—hoping that things will be better than they are now, hoping you’ll get over the things that bother you, and desperately wishing that disturbing thoughts and feelings will magically disappear.

And while you’re waiting and hoping for a better future, what is your present moment experience?

  • You feel like you’re missing something;
  • Your mind is full of thoughts telling you you’re dissatisfied and frustrated.
  • You’re immersed in that inner friction of not being at ease with the moment you’re actually in right now.

If you feel like something is wrong with this moment, it makes sense that you would hope for a better moment—at some point in the future. After all, you reason, the future must be better than what’s happening now.

Here’s the problem with this line of thinking.

~~There is no future. When you drill down to understand what the future actually is, you see that it is a concept in your mind, an imagined picture of what you hope will happen, and a comparison that makes the present come up short.

~~If this moment feels somehow wrong, then you’re not opening fully to all that’s available to experience right now. You’re caught in the tunnel of your conditioned patterns. It’s like living in a cloud and forgetting that the sky exists. Or seeing only the words on a screen while losing sight of the screen itself.

Here is an essential truth, and it’s a truth that will begin to set you free. Ready? There is more to your present moment experience than your mind will have you believe.

While you’re busy in your mind hoping and wishing for things to be better, you’re missing out on a deeper exploration of the reality present right now.

And what’s present right now? This question starts you on a sacred heartfelt path of discovery.

  • Take a breath and feel the life moving in your body;
  • Check in with each of your five senses so you can savor you’re actual right now experience;
  • Look outside the noise of the thinking mind to find the silence between thoughts, the open space of effortless being, the intimacy with all things.

Notice that all of these suggestions invite your attention to rest outside of the content of thoughts that wish and hope for something better.

These thoughts about a better future lose their power as your heart opens with infinite tenderness and welcoming to what’s here now.

If you stay attached to hope and wishful thinking, you’ve sidestepped the profound, luminous openness that’s available right now.

Forget about the future, and lean fully into all of your present moment experience. Like a miracle, you’ll find exactly the peace and well-being you’ve been looking for.

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