Could you be with yourself just a little longer? We all could stand to do this.

I would never have known twenty years ago what was possible for me. I didn’t even have a hint of it. I wish I could take my twenty-something self by the hand and assure her. I imagine pulling her hand and taking her along and showing her some things.

And so I write.

That doesn’t mean that suffering is no longer. There is huge suffering on multiple fronts.

And I weave that into myself. It is and is always becoming more a part of me.

When I do not do this - when I push away the suffering - when I am not sinking into myself. When I have not arrived.

When this is the case I am discontinuous. I can feel myself jump here and there.

I push away thoughts. Memories. I don’t allow pieces of myself.

I take a cookie to make life sweet and I miss the sweetness that comes from hearing my own pain and accompanying it through the other side.

We’re in a cultural group trance much of the time. Filling our time with things that have to happen. We think they have to happen. It’s a kind of slavery. Soul slavery.

The soul has something to say. Your being has something to say.

So much of what is called anxiety and depression is a soul screaming for attention.

I have something else to say. I am feeling something. I don’t want to do what I am doing.

What does sinking into ourselves look like?

It looks like pausing.

It looks like breathing.

It looks like tears, often.

As long as we look to the circumstances of our world and our life to change something inside of us we will remain fractured.

When we want to change our experience of our lives we have to attend to our experience. We have to pay attention to ourselves in a painstaking and sustained way.

Treasure upon treasure lies in this journey.

Surprise.

Change.

Love.

Solidity.

It’s all possible - from the inside.

There are many ways to get there. The main thing is this: commit to yourself. Even when it hurts. And all the rest will follow.