WORDS OF COMFORT
I hope you are all fairing well. I send you Loving Kindness each day.
I read these beautiful words of wisdom from Jack Kornfield yesterday. Jack is one of my beloved Buddhist teachers. He is clinical psychologist and an author of many books.
He was asked about the fear many of us are experiencing regarding COVID-19.
This is what Jack Kornfield said; “What is needed in a time like this are ways to steady the heart. The first step is acknowledgment and willingness to be present. You could almost whisper to yourself, ‘sadness, fear, anxiety, grief, longing,’ as if to bow to that feeling and hold it with respect. That allows the feeling to open-maybe even intensify for a bit-but eventually to soften. The next step is to bring in a
sense of compassion for all the fears and confusion and helplessness. These feelings are all part of the fight-fright-freeze instinct in the body and the mind. If I make space for the feelings and they have time to be felt, it’s as if my awareness gets bigger and I can hold all of this with greater ease and compassion and presence and steadiness.”
Ah, his words bring such comfort. May this inspire you to breathe deep, to be present with your feelings, and to make time for silence so that you can hear them.
(if you want to read more from this interview, check out the New York Times Magazine 4.13.20)