Tara Brach

Do I need to fight reality?

And something in him let go.

Over time the struggle softened.

He just found that he wasn't so identified with this separate self that was persecuted by life.

And instead he was living from a larger sense of who he was and from peace and openness.

And his health began improving.

He actually lived for decades afterwards and developed a popular healing path called the Sedona Method based on letting go of the beliefs and emotions that keep us stuck, that keep us small.

Okay, so waking up from victim consciousness, first realize it, okay, here I am, this identity, victim identity, seeing the suffering, the first noble truth.

Then the second noble truth,

realizing, oh, there's clinging.

Life should be different.

The should, looking and seeing the should.

The third step, and this is the third noble truth, the third noble truth says freedom is possible.

And the third step is remembering, you know, this victim self is not the truth of who I am.

I am more.

The fourth step, the fourth noble truth is really the Eightfold Path, how we live.

The fourth step in terms of waking up from victimhood is reclaiming agency.

What is mine to do?

What's the guidance of my heart and wisdom?

So I think of these four, you know, recognizing, ah, victim consciousness, realizing the should, remembering that we're more, and reclaiming agency, these four R's, I think of them as kind of daily hacks that are incredibly helpful.