Tara Brach

I often talk about how suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of ourselves. Only when we become aware of what is here and bring presence to what we have been running from can we discover wholeness and freedom. The same is true when we explore our relationships to each other and the world. We cannot be free if we are pushing anyone out of our hearts. If we are discounting, rejecting, or turning away, we are not living from our wholeness. It creates suffering. When we live in resentment, we have separated ourselves and pulled away from our belonging. Trance of the Unreal Other All life forms are designed to perceive separation. It is part of our evolutionary story. And in moments that we find ourselves stuck in reactivity or in some conflict or division, we create what I call an  unreal other . Rather than a living, feeling Being with wants, needs and fears, another person has become an idea in our mind and is not subjectively alive or real to us. They are two-dimens...

I remember when I was on a book tour for  Radical Acceptance , one of the places I stopped was the Buddhist university, Naropa, and they had a big poster with a big picture of me and, underneath the photo, the caption was:  Something is wrong with me. The Trance of Unworthiness: Forgetting Who We Are I wrote about the  Trance of Unworthiness  in  Radical Acceptance  14 years ago, and I’ve found, over the years, that it is still pretty much the most pervasive expression of suffering that I encounter in myself and in those I’ve worked with. It comes out as fear or shame —  a feeling of being fundamentally flawed, unacceptable, not enough.  Who I am is not okay . A core teaching of the Buddha is that we suffer because we forget who we really are. We forget the essence — the awareness and the love that’s here — and we become caught in an identity that’s less than who we are. When we are in the  trance of unworthiness , we’re not aware ...