Chillin’… waitin’… 8 days until Halloween… 🎃
Today, I’m Frankenstein’s Monster.
But all day, this 👆 quote kept popping into my head. Can anyone name the movie it’s from? It’s a classic!
Anyway, as I was saying about the boogie man…
Dr. Tara Brach tells a story in her book, ‘Radical Acceptance’ (one of my all-time favorite books, ever)—she says in Buddhism, the “Evil One” is called Mara. And Mara was always appearing in different ways, trying to destroy the Buddha.
“The Buddha’s loyal attendant, Ananda, always on the lookout for any harm that might come to his teacher, would report with dismay that the ‘Evil One’ had returned.
“Instead of ignoring Mara or driving him away, the Buddha would calmly acknowledge his presence, saying, ‘I see you, Mara.’ He would then invite him for tea and serve him as an honored guest. Offering Mara a cushion so that he could sit comfortably, the Buddha would fill two earthen cups with tea… then take his own seat.
“Mara would stay for a while and then go, but throughout the Buddha remained free and undisturbed.”
Dr. Brach teaches, “By running from what we fear, we feed the inner darkness.” She quotes the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, saying, “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
What if we faced our own pain, suffering, darkness—our own boogie man—with love and compassion? What is truly in that darkness? What is in that madness, crying out for help? When we turn inward toward our shadows—guaranteed we will find a broken child there.
I don’t like it when I am told I’m not broken. To me, it minimizes the pain. Ugh. Yes, I am broken. Stop it. It’s okay. I mean, my entire nervous system doesn’t work right.
To me, it also minimizes the triumph of putting myself back together again. It’s taken me so many years, painstaking effort, boundary building and rewiring. I have a long way to go, but when I allow myself to look back, I do see it—I have come SO far.
I have to accept each broken piece with care. They often appear as a boogie man. The only way to heal it is to face it with kindness and ask, “What brings you here?”
📚🥀
Where Rose Writes Very True Stories 