True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart (17 page)

When we're in the grip of trauma or very strong emotion, it may not be possible to reflect on goodness, our own or others'. But when the body and mind are less agitated, this inquiry can be a powerful entry to inner refuge. I often ask clients or students to consider the qualities they like about themselves—humor, kindness, patience, creativity, curiosity, loyalty, honesty, wonder. I suggest that they recall their deepest life aspirations—loving well, realizing truth, happiness, peace, serving others—and sense the goodness of their hearts' longings. And I invite them to sense the goodness of their very essence, their experience of aliveness, awareness, and heart.

When I ask this question, people often say that they just want the fear to go away. But when they pause to reflect, they often name more positive states of mind. Like Dana, they want to feel safe or loved. They want to feel valued or worthwhile. They long to feel peaceful, at home, or trusting. Or they want to feel physically held, embraced. The words that name our longings, and the images that arise with them, can become a valuable entry to inner refuge. Often the starting place is to offer ourselves wishes or prayers such as, “May I feel safe and at home.” Like offering the phrases in the classic lovingkindness mediation or placing a hand on the heart, expressions of self-care help us open to an experience of belonging and ease.

Sometimes, however, people feel so isolated, so disconnected from love and security, that they can't initially find any inner resources to build on. Bonnie came to a weekend meditation retreat after a biopsy of a suspicious growth in her breast. Her cancer had been in remission for a number of years and at first the fear that it had returned gripped her so strongly she could barely breathe. Then in a small group meeting, two other people talked about the life-threatening illnesses they lived with. When it was Bonnie's turn to speak, she was trembling, but present. “Listening to your stories let me take the first full breaths I've had in a few days. I realized I wasn't alone.” We agreed that for the rest of the weekend Bonnie's practice would be simple: to acknowledge the fear by saying to herself, “This is suffering,” and then remind herself, “I'm not alone. Others experience this too.” Before leaving she told me, “I've been saying those words over and over. Now just naming it like that and
feeling
that I have company gives me a little space … I can let the fear be there for a minute or so at a time. I don't like it, but I can stay present with it. “ When Bonnie arrived home to find that the growth was benign, she e-mailed me. “I know more about finding true refuge,” she wrote. “My cancer may still come back. Everything is uncertain, but now I know what I have to remember. I'm not alone.”

Again the phrase “Neurons that fire together, wire together” says it well: When we repeatedly direct our minds toward thoughts and memories that evoke feelings of love (or safety, or strength), the very structure of our brains is altered. On a physical and energetic level, we create new neural connections that serve as vital channels for healing. Where attention goes, energy flows.

At the time of his stroke, Ram Dass had studied with, revered, and prayed to his guru, Maharajji, over a period of thirty years. The gateway to a vast loving presence was already open, and in his moment of great need, he could walk through it to healing. But I've seen time and again that the gateway of the heart is still available even for people like Dana who have had little experience with inner training. All that is needed is the longing to heal and the willingness to practice. As poet Hafiz writes, “Ask the friend for love, ask him again … For I have found that every heart will get what it prays for most.”

“I'm Trusting My Soul”

For three months, Dana practiced faithfully, calling on her allies daily during moments of relative calm, and feeling embraced by their warmth and her own prayers for safety and love. She and I met regularly during that period, exploring together how her new ability to soothe herself also helped her practice RAIN when she felt anxious, irritated, or upset. But it was on her own, and in the face of extreme reactive fear, that Dana discovered her capacity to awaken from the trance of trauma.

“I'm learning what it means to trust myself,” she began. Then she told me what had happened the prior Saturday night. After downing a six-pack, Dana's boyfriend had aimed some taunting remarks at her, and then egged her on to react. “You don't like my talk? Go ahead, bitch … try shutting me up … see what happens.” Dana felt her gut instantly seize up with fear and she knew that if she stayed, she would only become more frightened and frozen. Before she walked out the door, Dana told her boyfriend that this time it was over between them.

And then the fear slammed into her. Afraid to be home alone, she went to her friend Marin's apartment and asked to stay the night. Marin hugged her warmly and they spent over an hour talking about what had happened. But long after Marin was asleep, Dana lay awake on the couch. “I couldn't stop thinking about how he might try to punish me, you know … stalk me or something.” Feeling a rising tide of terror again, Dana found herself curled up in a ball and shaking. “That was when I remembered that time in your office when I freaked out and we sat on the couch together … I knew I had to call on my allies.”

Dana sat up and wrapped her blankets around her; she focused on the support of the sofa under her, as I had suggested she do when she felt her fear arise, and she planted her feet squarely on the ground, feeling its solidity. “Then I called out for help,” Dana said in a soft voice. “I whispered Marin's name, my sister's name, and yours, Tara. I was gathering my women allies, having them surround me. But even then my heart still felt like it was exploding with fear.”

Dana described the fear “like hot, broken glass” tearing up her chest, but she kept whispering our names and bringing her attention to her feet on the ground. “Feeling you all with me, I could hang in there while all hell broke loose!” she told me. Dana sat on the couch hugging herself and imagining that we were all there hugging her, while her body trembled uncontrollably, and fear continued to tear through her. Yet, as she put it, “I kept feeling you all there caring—like I was surrounded by a presence that was caring about me—while my insides were being broken apart. Even though I was freaked out, I didn't feel alone. I could hear the words ‘May I feel safe, may I feel loved' going through my mind.”

Gradually Dana noticed that something was shifting. “The fear was still there, but it was no longer taking over … there was some space.
It was that space of loving that was larger than this scared self.
And as I settled down a little, and the minutes went by, that space became more and more filled with light. Warm, luminous light. It was like I was part of that light … and then I realized … my
soul
was back. That lit-up space was inside me. I started crying, feeling how all these years I'd been lost, living without this light, living in a broken self.”

Dana fell silent. Her hands pressed together as if in prayer, she bowed her head and allowed the tears to flow. When she looked up and spoke again, her voice was soft, yet full. “Tara,” she said, “I'm sad, and that's okay. There's something new growing in me. When I told you I am learning to trust myself … what I meant is … I'm trusting that caring place that lets in love, that is loving—my soul. That's where the safety is. Even though I'll probably have that broken feeling again, even though I'll feel lost, I'll find my way back. This light, this love, is part of what I am.”

As Dana and I sat quietly together, I remembered some lines from a poem by Rashani Réa called “The Unbroken”:

Fierce Grace: Becoming Who We Are

In the aftermath of his stroke, Ram Dass described his path of healing as “fierce grace.” The stroke had stripped him of tightly held aspects of his identity—he was no longer self-sufficient, he couldn't drive a car, play golf, or speak with his former fluency. Yet in opening to his vulnerability and loss, he found himself more aware of the divine within and around him.

Any deep wound or loss can be transformed into fierce grace when we meet the pain with a caring presence. We can find grace in the immediacy of a frightening experience or in working with long-held trauma. Although the pain of trauma may lead us to believe that our spirit has been tainted or destroyed, that isn't so. No amount of violence can corrupt the timeless and pure presence that is the very ground of our being. Waves of fear or shame may possess us temporarily, but as we continue to entrust ourselves to loving presence, as we let ourselves
feel
loved, our lives become more and more an expression of who or what we are. This is the essence of grace—homecoming to who we are.

Dana had anticipated that the feeling of being broken would resurface, and that she would be able to find her way back home when it did. Luckily, her boyfriend seemed to accept that the relationship was over and did not pursue her. Then, several months after her night on Marin's couch, Dana phoned a recently paroled client who had missed an obligatory relapse-prevention meeting. When she confronted him, the man went on a rant, cursing and yelling, and ended with, “Fuck you … you're like all the rest, you don't give a shit about what my life is like.” After he hung up on her, Dana's heart raced and her whole body shook. Her mind churned with the notion that she had done something very wrong.

Dana knew she needed to practice with RAIN, but before beginning, she settled herself in her office chair, planted her feet firmly on the rug, and called on her allies. Within a few minutes, she was letting in the message of trust and feeling herself held in a familiar space of care. Settled enough to bring mindfulness to what was happening inside her, Dana deepened her attention. With a kind presence, she was able to investigate the clench of fear in her chest and recognized the familiar belief that somehow she was at risk and might be punished. She gently sent the now familiar words of care inward: “May I feel safe. May I feel loved.” The more she relaxed, allowing the sensations and thoughts to come and go, the more she felt reconnected with her true self. “That inner space of warmth and light was back again—my soul. The big me was holding my self with kindness.”

Then something happened that really surprised Dana. Just as she had investigated her own inner experience, she began to ask herself about the man who had been so aggressive and threatening. What had he been feeling? Suddenly she could feel the humiliation and fear underneath his anger. Her entire viewpoint shifted. “When I asked myself what
he
most needed,” she told me, “it was very clear: Someone to help him feel safe, to help him feel like he matters.”

Dana was nervous before her client's appointment the following week, but she also felt confident and open. At first the man was sullen and wouldn't look her in the eye. But in response to her questions and obvious concern, he soon became animated, telling her how wild his old friends were, how hard it was trying to stay clean. Before leaving he said, “You know, maybe I got you wrong.… and I'm sorry about that. Thank you for being on my team.”

As she gained confidence in her capacity to handle situations, Dana found that she was becoming more kind. This was a dramatic shift as, in her own estimation, she didn't cut people much slack. “Now I really see how they're hurting,” she told me, referring to the people she was working with. “When they go back to the bottle and weed like this man probably did, when they go back to the street, well … it's no different from me going for a smoke or getting stuck on the wrong man. So in each case I find that I'm asking myself, ‘How can I sit by his side and keep him company? What will help her recover her soul?'”

As Joseph Campbell wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” When we are less identified with fear, the truth of who we are is able to shine through. We might discover a natural empathy, like Dana's, and the capacity to sense the soul, the light and goodness within others. Our truth might express itself as creativity or humor, as curiosity or generosity, as devotion or love. However it is expressed, the path of healing leads us from a narrowed, self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life sourced in awareness and heart.

Guided Meditation: Lovingkindness: Receiving Love

The trainings of the heart are so central to realizing true refuge that they are found throughout this book. Offering lovingkindness (metta) to ourselves is introduced on page 000, and receiving lovingkindness from others is introduced in the first meditation below. Awakening compassion (karuna) when we are caught in fear is the second meditation below. Compassion is also introduced in the form of forgiveness to ourselves on page 000, and forgiveness to others on page 000. Both lovingkindness and compassion practices are fully extended to include others on page 000 and 000 respectively.

Fear arises from a sense of separateness and it loses its grip as we perceive our connectedness to others and to life. This version of the lovingkindness meditation can help you develop your capacity to receive love and trust belonging.

Sit comfortably and quietly, and take a few full breaths. With a gentle attention, scan your body and mind, noticing whatever fear or vulnerability you might be feeling. Connect with your longing to feel safe, protected, and loved. Then remember a place—in the world or in your imagination—where you feel deeply at home. It might be a spot in nature or in your bedroom, a coffee shop, or a cathedral. Take some moments to evoke it with all your senses, imagining the forms and colors, the smells and sounds of your healing place. Can you feel yourself there, being held by the peaceful, comforting, or beautiful energy around you?