Someone once said, “In this life you spend most of your time either trying to dominate or trying to avoid domination.”
In that same way, when you are visited by old, undigested memories, feelings and neurosis, chances are you either try to dominate them by making them go away or avoid being dominated by spinning off into anger and blame, distracting yourself with planning and fantasy, getting sucked into depression or paralyzed by doubt and fear.
When these situations arise there is a counter-intuitive approach. Have a cup of tea with the experience. Sit down together and hang out a little bit. Listen. Learn what you can learn from this experience.
It’s easy to say, but not so easy to do. In this talk I explore a bit how this works. The blurb:
Tea with Your Demons If you practice non-judging awareness in meditation or in your daily life, you are bound to encounter challenges and undigested experiences.Rather than fighting, avoiding, nuking or falling into old habitual patterns, you can, when the circumstances are right, explore what lessons might be encoded in your experience.
This talk explores how to have tea with your demons and includes an open period for questions.
iTunes podcast here, online listening here, stitcher here, and Jonathan’s YouTube channel here.