I found this book years ago desperately looking for something help with my anxiety.  I wasn't ready for it be solved, because while it gave me some insight to what was possible through mindfulness, putting it into action came later.  Since then, I've read so many things on mindfulness, including his book: Mandala of Being, during which I took careful notes, then later a couple of books by Tara Brach.  It was during one of her books something clicked and I realized I just had to let go.  That NONE of the arguments to hang on were valid and I had a blissful time where I did just that.  Unfortunately, I've let myself get drawn back into living from my ego.  
Pain is doing that. I know it.  No matter how many times I argue with myself that WORRYING that it will never get better or might get worse won't solve anything and flogging myself for not taking action in getting help or trying to help myself, I'm still stuck.
Then today I read a wonderful reminder.  I am a work in progress. Oh wow, how often we get caught up in thinking that once we know things, we will change, those long built habits should disappear and things will be like they should be.
Which is of course being trapped in the future.
So, I'm just making some notes of things I've been struggling with lately.
One thing that has really waivered for me has been my faith.  My thinking brain has been overly active in putting forth arguments, and I've been engaging them and even falling for them.  All the while questioning, "why", when I know, within that deep wisdom, that those arguments are not truth.  I've felt that truth.
Indeed, in writing this, I am still being trapped in the need to reason it through, to understand.
So, 2 things I want to remember. 
One is about awareness, which to me is proof of A Source.
"....to have an immediate taste of this awareness, stop for a moment and ask yourself "who or what is thinking about what I am reading now?"  If you say "Me" or "I am" in answer to that question, then who or what is aware of that I or Me that you are referring to?"
The other thing that jumped out at me was pertinent to my internal argument.  "some scientists argue that awareness is a phenomenon of the brain...........it isn't necessary to understand the source of awareness; the important thing is appreciating it power and how to use it."

I just started back to reading this book.....this was in the first first 10 paragraphs of the first chapter.
I'm excited, because I think I have a little more understanding of these concepts than the first time I read that it, and I'm hoping I feel just how much it resonates with that inner wisdom and that I can again coax that to the forefront.
I'll likely be back with more notes.
I'm back:  Intuitive knowing.  THAT's that deep wisdom I was talking about. I'm not crazy, there's a term for it!
"Self attack results in a depressive stance in life that is paralyzing to positive action"
That I'm sure my intuitive knowing knows, but something I have to constantly remind myself of.  It feels like if you let of worrying about the situation, you won't move forward, but most if a not ALL the time, you won't move forward unless you let it go.  That's a HARD one.
I like how he talks about awareness as this mysterious distance from what you are aware of, and that sort of echos that feeling the need to cling to.....but in truth that space is needed for potential.  Ha!  Something else I've circled around to before....that ultimately, you are possibility.
but he is talking about opening the potential of having a relationship with those feelings, thoughts, memories.
Experiencing
​

I am from sun-filled days in the field, my brother and I dancing with sugar beet tops on our heads like we were Indians with headdresses.  
I am from a man's world where the boys were more valued, and the girls where the homemakers who should keep their belly's sucked in.
I am from that basement where I lived in MY world, the girl who could do anything: fashion designer, astronaut, pilot, inventor, singer, dancer, writer.  
I am from the world where upon emerging, the world set about to crush those dreams out of the girl.
And yet I clung to myself.
I am from the world of jocks being esteemed, the brains were geeks.
And yet I clung to myself.
I am from a world that values money over authenticity;  values looks over compassion; safety over freedom.  Teaches that you are not enough even as you come from the womb....
I am from loving the boy to distraction and the world we created with our inside jokes and made up words.
I am from losing myself when I lost him.
I am from becoming a better mother when I had less to mother.
I am from a world that gradually convinced me that the self I clung to was the mistake.  That I should be different and do more.
I am from a family of strong women, whose legacy I was terrified to make my own, and that when it came to pass, left me feeling a failure.
I am from feeling so crushed when I woke up and realized I was nothing I thought I should be.
I am from having to find that self I had clung to, buried deep within, and realizing I was there all along, I just hadn't been listening.
I am from the knowing.
I am from the knowing that none of the world's expectation need be my own.  
From the knowing that we all are born just as we need to be and can embrace that at any moment--needs letting go.
Letting go is hard, when just a short distance away, revolves the world, ready to suck you in and make you forget. When goals you've set are from the world, but you are from the universe.
I am from you.  
I am from everything, and nothing.
I am.

I came across a quote today, attributed to Pablo Picasso.  "Computers are useless, they can only give you answers"  (I looked it up, seems like it might be his, although slightly misquoted, he responding about " enormous new mechanical brains or calculating machines"......)
I think many then assume, sure the artist isn't about answers.  But it made me pause.  We, as humans, spend a remarkable amount of time looking for answers, unsatisfied with answers, disputing answers, thinking we have all the answers, fighting over answers. 
And what happens when you get the answer.  Often, you do one of the above.  Or, you judge yourself and/other based on that answer.  Are you happy once you get an answer? Satisfied or at peace?

What would happen if you just got ok with having questions?  Being curious? and not needing answers.

you know why I think it sucks so much to lose someone you love from your life?  I mean, does it make sense that we are so sad about losing someone who obviously didn't care enough to be in your life.  I think it has far less to do with them as it does with us. I think the part you loved was your reflection, or what you love about yourself that you saw in that person, your idealized view of them.  So losing them from your life is like losing a part of you that you love.  I like to think it was about losing that opportunity to give love, but this feels more likely, especially since I am not that awake, yet......

Is it strange what we decide about relationships?  Could it be we've gotten it sideways? We think other people are put here to make us happy.  But that is how we choose people for relationships.  If you do everything like I like it, AND you think I'm pretty cool, I'll be in a relationship with you.  I get stuck in that, for sure. I forget that in doing so I missing out on what I was put here for.  To experience.  That being said, I wouldn't mind experiencing more of the enjoyable stuff on a more regular basis.  In fact I would like it a lot, I'm tired of being strong and trying to give all those things to myself.  And when you're tired, yes, let your burden be carried....but I guess I'm still afraid. Afraid of getting more of what I don't enjoy....but then again, doing what I'm doing isn't getting it either, so why not rest.

oooohhhhh my!!  so many FB posts trigger me!!  I'm constantly staggered by the sheer number of people who insist society is right to refuse to allow people to live their lives as they see fit.
How are you right to decide about other peoples choices?  How are you right because it makes you uncomfortable, because it is unknown to you?  How are you right because it scares you?
How is hanging onto the known REALLY keeping you safe?  How is denying yourself your infinite possibility a better answer?
We are making SO many choices today based in FEAR.  Because of what might potentially happen in the future and screwing ourselves in the present!
We spend so much time and energy trying to figure out how to make our kids safe when the crazy and seemingly paradoxical truth is.....we need to spend that time and energy LOVING our kids.  THEN guess what?  They wouldn't be killing other kids!!!
I've struggled for long time trying to make sense of a truth I've been told, and a belief I've tried to hold onto, because it didn't pan out, it seemed to fall apart.  It's this:

We all are born with the innate ability to love ourselves. 

Why is this a truth?  Because we ARE love.  And a newborn baby is the purest essence there is.
So, what happens.  And this is where I've struggled: If we have that innate ability, why do so many of us NOT love ourselves?  What is wrong with us?  Well, we spend our formative years being taught just the opposite.  We are taught it's not ok to make mistakes, to give up our youthful exuberance for behaving, that it's NOT ok to just be us.  Right down to adults deciding that because you have certain genitalia, you have to look, dress and act a certain way.
 Even the religions that claim to teach the goodness of people, that you are part of God, that God forgives, send you down the wrong path by also instilling the belief that we are all sinners. After all, His own Son died for our sins.  I don't usually preach, but since this fits what I am talking about, I'll say it.  Jesus didn't die FOR our sins. He died BECAUSE of our sins.  WE were already saved.  He was just living the ultimate example of how you HAVE to allow others to believe and live as they will.  He gave his body's life for this principle.  And we won't even give up our own opinions for it.

I've been making a mistake. I've been forgetting that PEOPLE are NOT the relationship.  Just because a relationship doesn't work out, doesn't make that person bad.  And that works both ways, for the other person, and especially for myself.   I am not the relationship.  Because one didn't work out doesn't make ME a failure, because I don't currently have a relationship, does not make ME a failure.

Struggling to ge grateful for the fleeting things.  Struggling to not feel to blame when I don't get what I want in my life.  I guess it's natural to want to keep doing the things that make you feel good.  Struggling with allowing myself to have that want and to be ok with not having it fulfilled.
I'm recognizing that I've fallen back into the habits of grasping and seeing only lack.  it is hard to let go of the habit of thinking things should be a certain way in order to feel happy or even ok....
Struggling to arrange my thinking that I can only get what I need from a certain type of relationship...that one is particularly hard.  I don' know if that is learned behavior, though, like I started to say.  I remember seeing a study years ago that if a babies parent ignored them,  even if they weren't actually in distress,  the baby would suffer from that lack.  I guess as adults we are supposed to have the emotional maturity to handle that.  Oopps...?
Noooo....not oops.  How was I supposed to learn that?  Certainly not from any relationship I've ever had, be it parents, friends or partners.  AND....it takes practice....then things change, and you have to tweak it and practice another way.  I have to forgive myself for not being perfect.  And for thinking I shouldn't feel these things OR for thinking I shouldn't be struggling.
We do need connection, I am just struggling to not cling to that need....not place expectations that another person has to fulfill that.  Should I be able to give that to myself?  I knot inner connection, sure and we are all connected as humans....but am I crazy in thinking that companionship is a need?  Or have we just so underdeveloped our connection to our inner selves, that we've relied on that. 
This is all ego talking....they've taken over for the time being.....
yes. definitely, I've even had it come to my mind in recent days that I still have a woundedness that surfaced...
has my left brain taken over? I'm noticing this all saying the same thing essentially as previously....but in a more objective way.  I wonder....maybe that side of my brain is the side that tries to control, through logic.  So I'm falling back on habits of protection.  That would fit.  Not to mention I really don't like this crying emotional side...haha.