I  lived in a Zen monastery for three years, have undergone psychoanalytic training and AEDP relational therapy and been in private practice for over 30 years.  I have a good sense of the programs that can run in our minds telling their version of reality. 

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It can be helpful to have another person run interference for us and help us see what it is we’re believing about ourselves. To simply hold that space for us to look at what it is we take for granted or accept as true. 

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When we can drop the narrative and attend to the actual sensations and feelings we're having,  we're able to be present to ourselves in a very different way. It is this capacity to be present to our actual moment to moment experience that allows for compassion. 

 

Until we can actually see the program that’s been running our lives unawares, we’re not going to be able to know its cost to us and therefore choose differently.