Author: Anne

This author has written 845 articles

Self Imprisonment

Every moment in which we are caught – by desire, by an emotion, by an unexamined impulse, idea or opinion – in a very real way, we are instantly imprisoned by the habitual ways in which we react – whether it is a habit of withdrawal and distancing ourselves, as in depression and sadness, or erupting and getting emotionally “hijacked” by our feelings, as when we fall headlong into anxiety or anger.  Such moments are always accompanied by a contraction in both the mind and the body.

From: ARRIVING AT YOUR OWN DOOR 108 Lessons in Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn

REFLETION:

  • Is there some  anger or anxiety that is hijacking you now? 
  • How is this causing your life to contract?
  • How can you free yourself from this self imposed prison?
  • What steps will you take today?

FREE YOURSELF

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.  And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed.  Yet, it is only when man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free – he has set himself free – for higher dreams, for greater privileges. 

From: NOBODY KNOW MY NAME: More Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1961)

REFLECTION:  

  • These times have changed the world as we have known it. The safety we once took for granted is no longer. Are you willing to surrender?
  • How can you set yourself free for a ‘higher dream or greater privilege’?

DEALING WITH PAIN

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

Quote by James Baldwin from his book NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1955)

REFLECTION:

  • What ‘hates’ are you clinging to?
  • Upon examination, is there a pain being covered up?
  • What is the pain and how can you begin to deal with it?