Category Archives: breakthrough

Gratitude for my daughter, women friends, and skilled intuitive healers

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About gratitude journals

From googling “gratitude journal,” the practice apparently began in 1996 when Sarah Ban Breathnach created The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude as a companion to her popular book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

“Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos,” promises author Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance) in her introduction.

I believe it, Sister Sarah!

Sarah asked journalers (journalists?) to write five things every day that they felt grateful for and said they would feel their lives shift within a couple of months.

In 1998, Oprah Winfrey had Sarah as a guest on her show, and as we all know, Oprah just knows goodness. The gratitude journal took off.

I missed out on this back then. It was in the early days of the world wide web (remember that?). I was working at a computer all day, and in my free time, the last thing I wanted to do was be on a computer. (My, how Facebook and blogging have changed that!)

I was raising an adolescent girl going through her most difficult period, in an often-strained relationship.

Actually, looking back, keeping gratitude journals would probably have been a fantastically wonderful practice for us to share back then, if she had deigned to share anything with me.

Hmmm. She’s changed, and so have I.

What I feel grateful for today

Today I feel grateful for my whole experience of motherhood. From pregnancy (easy), through childbirth (difficult), to the moment I held my new baby in my arms for the first time and she wrapped her tiny fingers around my little finger (instant love), I have been blessed to have had a child, a daughter, and specifically my daughter, Lela Rose, who is 29 years old now.

Lela at her Dec 2010 graduation from nursing school, with her women friends.

I watched and helped her grow up, even as I grew up more myself, and she has turned out to be a mensch, a true human being. I see her in her young adult years now, a mother herself, starting her nursing career just this week, moving through struggle to accomplishment. I see her self-esteem, her worthiness, her competency, her intelligence, her endearing goofiness, her wisdom, her discipline, her caring, her limits too.

What I am most grateful for about being a mother is the personal growth that raising her brought to my life — the growing up that I had to do, the inner work of exploring my values, learning when to be flexible and when to stand firm, the changes that being her mother brought to my life.

Today I feel grateful for my women friends, in particular Clarita and Linaka, whom I spent time with last night. We go way back to 1995 when we began ecstatically dancing together. That is 16 years of knowing each other, talking, coming together and moving away, seeing each other through difficulties and joys and sharing them, traveling together, cooking and eating together, always laughing together, and lately doing NLP with each other.

I feel blessed to have so many women friends, new and old, near and far. There is something about the friendship of women that is so nurturing. I think we let our hair down when it’s just us, in a way that we don’t or can’t with men, because we share the lifelong experience of being women in this culture. And when we have common interests and affection for each other, the connecting is abundant.

Today I feel grateful for those people I’ve encountered so far in my life who are skilled intuitive healers. I’ve mentioned Patrice, my acupuncturist, and Chandler Collins, my chiropractor, on this blog before.

Yesterday I had a heart-centering bodymind session with Bo Boatwright, who is a chiropractor but who has learned and developed a method that one could do with just a massage license.

Having experienced one session with Bo, I’d say his work with me on the table was a combination of massage, chiropractic, myofascial release, rebirthing, and visualization. He rolled me and moved me to find the stuck places, and he dug into the stuck places, having me breathe all the while, until my body spontaneously began to release stress/tension/stuckness in the manner of rebirthing and trauma releasing exercises.

After my body quieted down, I felt sadness arise in my heart chakra. I cried, and Bo asked me about my relationship with my parents, who died in 1984 and 1997 (but of course one’s relationship with parents doesn’t end with death). I opened my heart to them, forgave them, embraced them, kissed them…

A couple of hours later, in a moment of quiet stillness, I noticed a new space in my heart center, an openness that wasn’t there before.

Thanks, Bo. I’m grateful for you. And heads up, you are teaching me.

Let’s get this party started! Free NLP sessions to get you unstuck!

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I’ve been having a lot of fun lately doing NLP sessions with people I know. Since a lot of people are confused or intimidated about what NLP is, I’m offering a special, time-limited offer for the next week, until January 12, 2011.

If you are feeling stuck in some aspect of your life — moving ahead with a project, making a decision — and you are ready for some movement or maybe even a breakthrough, email me at the address on the Contact page.

We’ll seek a time to meet for an hour for an NLP coaching session (which is really just help getting unstuck).

The first session is on me, and sometimes that’s all it takes, just one session to get unstuck. You can take it from there.

In exchange, I ask that you either write a testimonial (can be anonymous to preserve confidentiality, and kindly convey any negative feedback in private) or give my business card to three people you encounter who are stuck and tired of it.

I don’t know the answer. You do. And by the way, the best definition of NLP is this:

NLP is what works.

Read these books!

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I read a lot.

Let me clarify that. I don’t read as much as a few other people read, or as much as I read in the past, but I am a reader. I’ve been an avid reader from a young age, at times indiscriminate but now much more discerning.

It’s that Buddhist saying: “Don’t waste time.” If a book doesn’t hook me early on, I set it aside and try later. It doesn’t mean it’s not good. It just means it’s not relevant enough to what I need to learn in that moment to make the effort feel alive. Energy flows where attention goes. If there’s no energy there, why bother?

The following is a list of books I read in 2010,  plan to read in 2011 (plan, not commit), read before 2010 (and mentioned on this blog) that have shaped my world, and reference books that I dip into but will probably not read cover to cover. Links are included to the books’ pages on Amazon.com; if you buy a book from clicking a link here, I’ll get a very small financial reward — which I appreciate, because blogging takes time.

I’ve mentioned a few of the 2010 books prominently, namely, The Open-Focus Brain, A Symphony in the Brain, Buddha’s Brain, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process, and What Really Matters. You can do a search for those posts and read what I wrote if you want.

Books read in 2010

Buddha, by Karen Armstrong

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson

The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, by T.K.V. Desikachar

Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings, by A.G. Mohan with Ganesh Mohan

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body, by Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins

Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, by Judith Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.

The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times, by David Bercelli

Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath

A Symphony in the Brain, by Jim Robbins

The Web That Has No Weaver, by Ted J. Kaptchuk

What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America, by Tony Schwartz

Yoga Sutras, translated by Kofi Busia (PDF file)

2011 Reading List

The 4-Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss

Access Your Brain’s Joy Center: The Free Soul Method, by Pete A. Sanders Jr.

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain

Beliefs: Pathways to Health & Well-Being, by Robert Dilts, Tim Hallbom, and Suzi Smith

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell

Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold, by Krishna Das

The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga: The Authoritative Presentation Based on 30 Years of Direct Study Under the Legendary Yoga Teacher Krishnamacharya, by Srivatsa Ramaswami

Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness, by Evan Finer

Emotional Intelligence 2.0, by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

Nourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine, by Lonny S. Jarrett

Transforming #1, by Ron Smothermon, M.D.

Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion, by Diane Eshin Rizzo

Yoga Body: Origins of Modern Posture Yoga, by Mark Singleton

Influential books from my past

The complete works of Carlos Castaneda, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Dune, by Frank Herbert

Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti

The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul, by Sandra Maitri

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences, by Peter A. Levine

The Healing Triad: Your Liver…Your Lifeline, by Jack Tips

Reference books

Light on Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar

Poems New and Collected, by Wislawa Szymborska

The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, by Cyndi Dale

Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, by B.K.S. Iyengar

When meditating triggers presence, like Pavlov’s dog #reverb10

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Brene Brown, whose TED Talk I blogged about the other day after discovering Alan Steinborn’s recommendation on Facebook, does this thing on Twitter that she explains here on her blog. She calls it #Reverb10 and describes it as:

an online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead.

As I understand it, it’s a group initiative. Thirty-one writers post prompts for writing and reflection on Twitter using the hashtag #reverb10. Brene is one of the writers. Anyone can get on Twitter, search for #reverb10, and respond.

Because not everyone is on Twitter, Brene has graciously made space on her blog where people can respond in the comments (with more than 140 characters!) to any or all prompts, and/or leave a link to their blog.

This is social networking at its most awesome!

Here is Brene Brown’s prompt for Dec. 27:

Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

Click the link above to check out Brene’s response to her own question, and those of many others.

And here is my response.

My most joyful ordinary moment is about something that I became aware of recently, and to understand it, I need to share a little background for new readers.

I started this blog as a year-long project to help myself develop the habit of meditating for 30 minutes daily. I’d meditated for several years, but not consistently. I’d do okay for a couple of weeks, then get derailed (sometimes for another couple of weeks).

I knew meditation had all kinds of beneficial side effects, and I wondered:

If I could put a little (or a lot) more effort into meditating every day, how would my life change?

Well, I failed. I did not meditate every day. I could not meditate with a stuffy nose (mouth breathing just doesn’t get it for me).

I also went through a period of rebellion a few months into the year. I was laying this demand on myself, and it felt burdensome. I rebelled, took a break, plunged inward with questions, and came back wanting to do it, recommitted.

I also had a sort of breakdown/spiritual awakening in November that resulted in me quitting my day job after six years. I was so distressed, I couldn’t sit. A lot of things in my life came to a head. I had planned to leave my job at the end of May in order to start acupuncture school in July, but circumstances actually made it the perfect time to leave (and my gut said I had to, besides).

Other than that, oh, and la-di-dah, a few days of just pure laziness, I have meditated daily in 2010.

End of background.

My most joyful ordinary moment came a week or so ago when I realized that as soon as I sat down on my meditation cushion and took a breath, that I was there. In the present moment. It felt like all considerations of the past and future just dropped away, leaving just the moment and the breath and the quiet bliss.

I am now like Pavlov’s dog, only instead of a bell triggering salivation, sitting on a meditation cushion triggers presence.

I created that in 2010.

This will go to Twitter, and I’ll comment on her blog as well. She’s giving away copies of both of her books and her DVD! I wouldn’t mind having those at all!

I love this project!

My heroes of 2010

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I want to acknowledge some people who are heroes of mine in 2010.

My daughter Lela Reynolds graduated from nursing school earlier this month. She is a single mom raising a child with some special needs. That child is now 10. Since Hannah was very young, Lela has been working and going to college. She went to school full-time the last two years. Nursing school is tough, people. She hit the books, did the work, learned the knowledge.

Soon she will take her licensing exam to become an RN. This career suits her well. She likes being useful, is resourceful in a crisis, and is fascinated by humans and health. I think she will work well in settings like hospitals, and she has a couple of employers interested in hiring her. They’ll be lucky to have her.

I am very proud of her, and she did it mostly by herself, with just a little help from me. Way to go, Lela!

Anna Carroll is an amazingly resilient woman I know who discovered she had breast cancer this year. She combined Western and alternative medicine and is nearly done with treatment. I saw her last weekend, and she’s looking good. Anna has a well-developed and creative ability to tap into whatever resources she needs.

Katherine Daniel is another friend undergoing cancer treatment. She kept quiet about it at first and then created a healing circle of friends to provide a supportive community. She’s nearly done with Phase 1, the radiation and chemo.

Both of you, blessings on your journeys. Cancer is a tough one, and you’ve risen to the occasion. Kudos on creating what you need, and I send you my wishes for full and complete well-being.

Abby Lentz is a nationally recognized yoga teacher who lives here in Austin. She created Heavyweight Yoga (aka Heartfelt Yoga) and has made two videos, Yoga for the Body You Have Today and Change the Image of Yoga.

If you have ever considered that large-bodied people couldn’t possibly do yoga, I invite you to watch her videos.

I appreciate Abby for getting the word out — yoga is not just for the young and already fit. It is beneficial for everyone.

I also have great admiration for my cousin Heather and her husband Michael Mazza. They are the parents of six children. They provide an inexhaustible supply of love and direction and leadership for their brood. Watching them with their children in a restaurant is amazing. The kids are well-behaved and friendly, and Heather and Michael enjoy themselves as well. Well done.

I’ve asked friends on Facebook about their heroes for 2010. Glenda says her sister Annie got off her cancer medicine, and that is really GREAT! Yay, Annie!

Katie mentions Linaka Joy for all her explorations and triumphs with health this year. I second that! (My friend Linaka has been a quiet hero, not tooting her own horn but showing us her changed self.) She has changed the way she relates to food, lost weight, and along with the pounds, become lighter in spirit! This year she founded the San Antonio NLP meetup, taking more of a leadership role in the central Texas NLP community. You rock, Linaka! This work will go far.

Katie also considers her cousin Madison a real hero “for the fantastic way she has handled her best friend (who’s also a teenager) having a baby. She stayed upbeat and supportive and used it as a way to strengthen their friendship, despite lots of criticism all around.”

I also want to recognize Barbara Diane Beeler, a fellow blogger and friend, who lost over 60 pounds and is no longer considered obese. She wrote about it in her post Letting Go of Obesity and Regaining a Life. Diane, good going.

Last but not least, I want to mention Gretchen Wegner’s mother, who taught her two-and-a-half-year-old grandson two yoga poses to make diaper changes go well: downward facing dog and bridge pose. Yogis, you get it. Gretchen posted this on Facebook; I haven’t met her mother. I must say, Gretchen, your mom is brilliant! I love that kind of resourcefulness!

Now, who did I omit?

Living with wholeheartedness takes courage, compassion, connection, and vulnerability

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Often when someone asks me to use my NLP training to help them move through a problem state to one of resourcefulness, I have just read or seen or heard something that applies in their situation.

I bring that new information in, and it helps them expand. (I dislike the term “solving problems,” because it seems so linear. Instead we dance with problems, move with them, do the tango, maybe even a little jitterbug, and always end up with new possibilities.)

I do not know how this works, that I find information and inspiration just in time, but I am grateful for these synchronicities. I feel plugged in to the cosmos when this happens. Thank you for taking care of me, cosmos, since I’m meeting up with someone later to play with NLP.

This morning I encountered a wonderful TED Talks video that Alan Steinborn posted on Facebook. (Alan walks with beauty and resourcefulness.)

I can tell this video is going to be a huge resource for me and for those I work/play NLP with.

It’s also incredibly apt for year’s end, when many of us search for the core issue to acknowledge and attend to and dance with during the coming year.

Dear blog readers, read this post or watch the video. Which area of your life can benefit most from your loving attention in 2011?

In the 20-minute video, the gifted and funny Ph.D. social worker Brene Brown discusses her research findings about shame and worthiness. Click the link and watch it if you have time; if not, read on for a synopsis.

Brown says there is only one variable between the people who have a sense of love and belonging and those who struggle for it and are always wondering if they’re good enough:

The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging.

That’s it. That’s what separates the people who live their lives feeling worthy from those who don’t. A belief in their own worthiness.

(NLP works with beliefs.)

To break this sense of worthiness down even more, Brown reviewed her research and found that those who feel worthy share these characteristics:

  • Courage. It’s not the same as bravery. It means to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
  • Compassion. They are kind to themselves first, and then to others.
  • Connection. They are willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they actually are.
  • Vulnerability. They are willing to do something first, to do something where there are no guarantees.

Brown then went to a therapist to work on her own vulnerability issues. She noted that this single characteristic is at the root of shame and fear and the struggle with worthiness, and also of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.

With a humorous display of her own worthiness, she relates how she told the therapist she didn’t want to deal with family or childhood issues, she just needed some strategies!

She spent a year in therapy struggling with her vulnerability, knowing it’s a huge issue for so many others, and then spent two more years on this research.

She states plainly:

We are the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.

We numb ourselves to avoid our vulnerability.

You cannot selectively numb emotion.

When we numb, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.

To paraphrase, “and then we’re miserable and feel vulnerable, and we numb it, and the vicious cycle starts over.”

Besides addiction, we use certainty to numb — certainty about religion, certainty about politics, certainty about our opinions.

We also use perfection to numb. We perfect our bodies. We perfect our children. Brown notes that children are wired for struggle. If we can let them struggle and also believe they are worthy of love and belonging, wow, what a world that would be to live in!

We also numb by pretending that what we do doesn’t have an effect on people. Oil spills, recalls, global warming, and so on. We avoid taking responsibility and making amends.

To change this direction, she recommends that we…

  • Let ourselves be seen.
  • Love with our whole hearts, even though there are no guarantees.
  • Practice gratitude and joy.
  • Believe that you are enough.

I hope this helps you strengthen your wholeheartedness and believe in your worthiness for love and belonging.

More on ego death: Experiencing emptiness

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From the book What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America, by Tony Schwartz, a quote from Sandra Maitri, a teacher of Hameed Ali’s Diamond Approach (she later wrote The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram):

“Emptiness can be experienced in very different ways,” Maitri explained, after we’d done the exercise. “Often you almost literally fear you’ll die if you stay in that emptiness, and in a sense that’s true. A given sector of the personality will die if you don’t keep trying to fill it up. But there is something deeper. Emptiness feels like a black hole when it’s viewed through the prism of the personality. But that same hole is experienced as open and pristine and very peaceful when you are in essence. It may take a leap of faith to let go into this emptiness — whether from courage or desperation. But when you do, it is very spacious, and it’s anything but deficient. It is the beginning of opening up to our true selves — to the empty space in which everything arises, to the ground of our fundamental nature.”

This popped up into my awareness after writing previously about jumping off the train, a form of ego death.

Jumping off the train, or the joy of being wrong

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It’s been 10 years since I jumped off the train, and my life hasn’t been the same since. It’s been so.much.better.

Ten years ago, I had just moved from Dallas to back to Austin to a new job. I was very wound up about some choices that someone close to me had made, choices that were terrible, with dire consequences, in my opinion.

My friend with whom I was staying followed a spiritual teacher called Prasad. I went with her that day to one of his satsangs.

I wasn’t sure what to think of him — a long-haired American dude with a Hindu name, dressed in white, sitting on a carpeted platform with flowers, answering questions as if he was a guru.

He looked like a hippie putting on airs to me. I was silent during the satsang, observing.

But Prasad said something about “jumping off the train,” meant in the sense of shifting into a more authentic way of being. “Jumping off the train” was a nice metaphor. It stuck in my mind.

That night, which was the night before I was to start my new job, I laid awake, mind whirling with anxiety and anger about what this person had done and what I believed the consequences would be.

I could not fall asleep. The clock slowly crept past midnight into the wee hours as I lay awake, monkey mind going a hundred miles per hour.

I knew how important the first day at a new job is. I wanted to make a good impression, not be bleary-eyed and tired.

That part of me was really annoyed that I was letting this worry get to me so much. That part was self-centered.  That part remembered “jumping off the train” and decided I had nothing to lose by trying it.

I imagined myself on the top of a train speeding through the darkness. The train was my train of thoughts and emotions. Monkey mind on speed.

Crouching atop the train like an action hero, I could feel the cold air and the wind generated by the train’s speed.

I began to think about jumping off. What would happen to me if I did? Could I die?

Yes, definitely I could die from jumping off the train!

I did it anyway. I flung myself off the train, somersaulting into the air.

And what happened was this: Nothing happened. Literally. Nothing happened.

I found myself experiencing dark, silent stillness. I didn’t land. I didn’t die. And in that nothing was a blessed, blessed relief. Peace. Peace of mind. At last.

I slept like a baby the rest of the night and felt rested my first day on the new job.

I later recognized that jumping off the train was an experience of ego death. What died was my self-important belief that I had to worry and suffer because someone I loved made what I thought was a dire mistake.

I began to accept the situation and recognize for the first time in my life that worry doesn’t do a thing for anyone, especially the worrier. I found ways to love that person without losing sleep, without taking their choices personally, without suffering but with compassion. For both of us.

I have since noticed that when one experiences ego death, humility accompanies it. Humility and humus come from the same root in Latin. It is grounding to experience humility, and it brings grace.

Ego death. Believe me, we spend a lot of energy fearing and avoiding it. And when it happens, grace follows.

How else can I be wrong and find grace?

Leaving a job, embracing the unknown

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How much change do you need or seek?

I need a certain amount of change in my life, and I’ve worked in an environment for the last six years where people often stay in the same job for decades.

I gave two weeks’ notice at my job on Monday.

I once worked at the same place for eight years, although that job involved promotions, various managers, and several reorganizations. In my current job, I have done the same thing for the same manager for six years. I’ve liked working with her. She hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve felt comfortable with her supervising my work. She’s a literate technologist, and I appreciate her. Now she’s retiring, and I’ve come to see it is also the best time for me to leave.

Even though giving up a secure job brings insecurity, I feel strongly that I did the right thing anyway! I feel exhilarated and insecure, free and scared and adventurous.

I’m excited about the new opportunities I have — to work in a health food store, to work in a garden center, to spend more time with my granddaughter, to catch up on my reading, to devote more time to improving my blogging, maybe travel a bit, take some workshops that intrigue me.

To rediscover my own biorhythms instead of those artificially imposed by an employer’s needs — yippee!

And of course as I’ve mentioned before here, I’m selling my house, planning to downsize into a vintage trailer, and have been accepted into the Academy of Oriental Medicine of Austin with a summer start date.

I am witnessing doors open — like being asked if I’d be interested in teaching an “old men’s” yoga class!

I notice a kind of shedding that accompanies leaving this job. My mind feels sharper and more resourceful. I feel more alive.

I am not who I was six years ago. Dang, but I have done a lot of yoga since then, substituted for my teacher, and finally trained as a teacher.

I’ve taken two levels of NLP training and presented on NLP topics, with plans to do more and some coaching again.

I finally read all the Carlos Castaneda books and discovered some great poets and took up the pennywhistle.

I’ve traveled to Maui twice and discovered West Texas.

I’ve been in and out of relationship a couple of times.

I’ve been a support for my daughter while she’s gone to nursing school.

I’ve been an integral part of my granddaughter’s life.

I’ve worked hard on several health issues with a lot of success.

I’ve made some friends at work and gotten kudos for my work.

And of course, I started meditating and started this blog.

Really, I cannot count all the changes I’ve made while working in this same steady job. The job has made it possible for me to grow and change, and now it seems I’ve outgrown the job.

I’ve come to accept that truly, life is change, that change is the key characteristic of life. I walk towards it now.

Suffering more effectively

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Every Wednesday, I get an email from Nipun Mehta called InnerNet Weekly, also viewable in a browser. Here’s the link to view this week’s message on how to suffer more effectively, written by Shinzen Young.

Therefore, there is nothing whatsoever to be said in favor of pain per se for meditators. It can just as much create new blockages as it can break up old ones. Everything depends on one’s degree of skill in experiencing it. Very little depends on the intensity of the discomfort itself. A small discomfort greeted with a large amount of skill will break up old knots. A small discomfort greeted with a large lack of skill will create new knots. The same is true with respect to big discomforts. The trick is not so much to endure massive doses of pain, but to develop that skill which will allow you to get the maximum growth out of whatever happens to come up.

Click the link above to learn more about the skills needed.

Here’s more from Thomas Merton on suffering:

Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture. This is another of the great perversions by which the devil uses our philosophies to turn our whole nature inside out, and eviscerate all our capacities for good, turning them against ourselves.