Tara Brach

So we're armored because we're protecting ourselves.

And

I'd say a huge part of the courage on the bodhisattva path is this willingness to feel the armoring and deepen our presence to the armoring.

I often will say, you know, what are you trying to do for me?

And it's to protect me from being hurt.

and then to be able to keep bringing attention to the fear that's trying to protect.

And that itself is kind of a life training.

And we can only do it at the pace we can do it because some of us have been wounded more deeply, there's trauma, and we have to go really, really slowly.

And because there's what's called the window of tolerance, how much we can be with the fear.

But the intention, the intention is to meet that armoring and that felt sense of fear.

With as much care as we can, like ultimately, it's to love the fear.

But initially it doesn't feel that way.

The reason I teach RAIN so much is because it's such a powerful sequence in being able to start to lean in to being with fear.

Where we start with RAIN is recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture.

We start by just naming, oh, we feel the arm ring, recognize it, okay, fear, fear.

And then allow means not to fight that it's there, just to say, okay, this is here.

Like waves in the sea, it's like saying, this belongs, it's part of things.

Which is really powerful, because if we don't try to get rid of it, or fix it, or judge it, we can actually drop deeper in just learning to be with the waves.

So the

A is to allow it, the I is to investigate it, and that means just to sense as well as we can, okay, where does this live in my body?