Part of me doesn’t believe it is possible to step back from it. But I know that the first step is believing that it is possible.

Feeling lighter again. The baby and the puppy are besties already playing together and giggling madly. I blew bubbles for them and they took turns popping them. He shares his old toys with her and throws things for her to fetch.
His love for vacuuming has blossomed into a love for putting his toys away. He’s trying his best, bless his soul.

I’m trying to step back from my emotions. There are ups and downs.

I noticed that I feel most relaxed when I’m practicing loving kindness meditation.

A belief that worrying helps me to plan is playing in the background. But I noticed that talking about concerns is more helpful when it comes to problem solving.

Sometimes understanding how I’m feeling helps me. I realised that I was having a rough morning because I was tired. Upon realising that, everything seemed less stressful.

I think that I need to work on focusing on a present task, instead of being lost in my thoughts and feelings.

Hi John

They are having a blast for sure. It’s lovely to watch. 😊

That makes sense.

It might just be being tired that is making me a little slow to pick up on things. I was feeling a little frustrated, then the feelings of tiredness took over and I realised that the frustration was because of the tiredness and if I wasn’t tired I wouldn’t be frustrated.

The older dog was ill last night and kept us awake. I hope he feels better soon and we can get some sleep. Still exhausted. One of these days I’ll sleep. 😂

Take care!
Love, peace and blessings! ❤️🙏

The book I read dropped some truth bombs. Accept the void within because it doesn’t go away. 😬 Yikes. Treat it with kindness, eh?

I take it at face value when people more experienced and knowledgable than me offer advice.

My son is almost walking. He can take a couple of steps. 😲

Then all he’ll have to do is get talking properly and he’s basically a fully formed person.

It’s crazy thinking that there really isn’t much to people. Walking, talking, eating, pooping, sleeping. Sentient meatbags. 😂

Super cool!

Hi John

It was your old friend, Bhante Kovida. An Inquiring Mind’s Journey into wisdom, compassion, freedom and silence. You inspired me to learn more. I know that a lot of monks tend to write books and I was curious. 😊

In this case, he was talking about a tendency towards depression that many people have. But he does discuss emptiness elsewhere in the book.

Do you have any thoughts on either subject? Or well anything really? Please feel free to share whatever you wish.

Love, peace and blessings! ❤️🙏

Hi John

How is life treating you?

I thought he was very insightful about how the mind works. I hadn’t heard or thought of some of the connections he’d made, but upon reading and reflecting it was definitely true. I thought it was fascinating how well the scientific mind gels with Buddhism.

Fortunately, the baby, the puppy and I are sleeping through the night now, so I’m able to talk more again. Dropping a nap for the baby helped. He is even learning to nap on his own. Then I will have some extra free time for studying.

I don’t know much about emptiness either to be honest. There are times when my mind goes quiet, say during meditation. I don’t know if that is what they mean? Or something else?

Oh it turns out that the advice was similar in a way to my old therapist (she was a very compassionate and insightful lady). But different and potentially more helpful. Her advice was that over time pain gets smaller and easier to deal with, but it never goes away.

The advice in Bhante Kovida’s book was to accept that it is going to be there when you recall bad memories because it is a function of memory. Acceptance and being kind to yourself. Plus the wisdom. There was also an emphasis on a difference between the ego and Buddha mind. It was good to have a clarification on that too. He’s a brilliant man.

It has helped me to think of things in terms of the function of memory. It creates some distance from the feelings if you just think of them as memories. Now that I think about it, psychology also seems to understand that too. But my therapist did not directly explain it to me. She just kept asking, “Do you remember the first time you felt like that?”

Love, peace and blessings! ❤️🙏

I looked up the developmental milestones for that age and it is when children start to develop a sense of identity, to separate from their families and understand more about how the world works.

It was a traumatic time for me. I was very aware that my life was very different from other children. As a result, I was very different. And also very depressed. I felt alone because there was no one I could relate to. It was also very painful to realise that things were being done that should not be done. It is quite horrifying to begin to understand something like that after it has been going on for a while.

When I was younger, before that age it was just the way life was to me. I wasn’t happy but I didn’t really think about it or understand what was going on fully. I learned that I was being abused from children’s books. Not because the material explained what that was. But because my life was so vastly different from anything in a child’s book. It created a very jarring understanding of something being very wrong at home.