I feel the regularity of self-compassion based practices is enhancing my resiliency and stability. Yesterday, I was troubled by the activity of a very discursive mind. Thoughts led me down old rabbit hole patterns of failure, defeat and despair. I tried to move away from it by keeping busy. I was able to distract myself for a couple hours when I met friends for an afternoon concert. Yet as I drove home, the thoughts came rushing back in. Finally, after I arrived home and began to make some dinner, I happened to look outside and see the pink glow of the setting sun across the snowy fields and said to myself, “Okay, it’s time to stop and be in this.”

I recently have found myself drawn back to the teachings of Pema Chodron. Pema was one of the first teachers I connected with when I began looking for a new spiritual home after I felt the religious upbringing of my childhood no longer had a place for me. I accepted my sexual orientation of lesbian when I was 21. I knew this was an inherent part of me, not something I was choosing. The strong Calvinistic, Protestant religion I was brought up in told me homosexuality was a sin and abomination. I knew in my heart it wasn’t. I couldn’t stay in a religion where I was not welcome, so even though it was wrenchingly painful to leave the spiritual ground my life was built on to that point, I had to find another path.