Stuck in the mud...

Stuck in the Mud
BY MADISYN TAYLOR


Pain can serve as one of life's great teachers, but it's vital to move through it and not become stuck.

Pain comes and it goes. It is just one component to the grand cycle of life. And when experienced as such, pain can serve as an important teacher. It is when we get stuck in our pain that it becomes detrimental to our well-being and development. If you notice that you feel closed-off, resentful, heavy-hearted, or that you try very hard to avoid being hurt again, there may be a part of you that is still stuck in pain.


We can get stuck in our pain for many reasons. As children, it was natural for us to cry, throw a tantrum, and let the experience move through us. By fully feeling our pain in this way, our emotions would wash us clean, leaving us open and available to new experiences. With age, though, we might have determined that expressing emotion was no longer appropriate, and so we developed a variety of coping strategies to deal with our discomfort. We may have learned to stuff our feelings down or to run away from them. Perhaps we began thinking that staying closed and unwilling to try new things would keep us safe from heartbreak, safe from rejection, and safe from failure. We may have even gotten so used to being in pain that the thought of being without it scares us. But, if we continue to hold onto it longer than necessary, we are expending a lot of energy that could instead be channeled into making our life experiences more positive.


If you notice that you are continually connecting with the same familiar patterns of pain, consider embracing your feelings and letting go of your hurt. Whether your pain is from childhood or from an experience last week, see if you can give it room to move. When it does, you will reconnect with a wonderful source of your own vital energy.






Getting Unstuck 

BY PEMA CHODRON

We all know what it's like to be triggered-- to have said something we wish we hadn't, or reacted in a way that wasn't helpful. What if there was a way to interrupt our knee-jerk responses and make a different choice? Each of us gets hooked in habitual ways of seeing the world, but how we respond to these situations will in large part determine how much peace and freedom we experience in our lives. These are the Tibetan teachings of shenpa, as taught by bestselling author and American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. In this course, Pema shares the liberating wisdom of an approach that she uses in her personal daily practice, along with tools for putting it to work in our own lives. The purpose of this course is to help you see the ways in which you get caught or "hooked" in habitual responses to life, and how you can learn to choose a "fresh alternative," thereby experiencing a life of freedom, joy, and true happiness.