QUESTION: I wonder - do you still get caught/tripped up by/sideswiped/hooked and then feel like, "jeez, after all this time, this can still happen"? Do you feel pretty much healed and whole, yet amazed that a new button can be pushed connected to an old wound that continues to have a faint "charge or hotness" to it or are they new buttons and new soft spots?

And if there is a boring old button pushed and a reaction to it, does it mean the work is not done or that we may have left present-moment awareness and returned to our story instead… can both be true at the same time?

ANSWER: Oh yes, it is possible for those buttons to always be there. We are never going to be immune to the soft spots, and the more open the heart, the more sensitive one is. But at the same time, one protects oneself by doing one’s utmost to stay out of situations that are toxic. Life can always bring such things to our doorstep, but one starts avoiding such situations when possible. People, places, and things that bring on the pain lose their luster as one starts by volition choosing peace over drama.

That drama, it has such a charge. Takes work to let that one go and not confuse serenity with boredom. It can also take much pain to let that one go. Like a mean lover, it keeps pulling us back for more until one day we step away quietly. No fight, no mess, just a slipping away from what we once confused for life, what was, in fact, death disguised as sustenance. Healing is a process to be lived, not a destination to be arrived at. Our goal-oriented minds find that a hard one to grasp. Sometimes making peace with a wounded aspect of our self is all that can be done initially. But the acceptance of a wound and our helplessness around it will many times take the charge away in due time. To accept our frail humanity and its contradictions, while holding our divinity, is powerful medicine.