The full body sensation of an emotional trigger requires the Welcome Practice writ large, extended in real time to the real world. Sitting in a board meeting, I can usually do the mental work to attend to what’s being said. I can usually do the wisdom work to let go of my preconceived ideas and consider things non-anxiously. But holy hell, to be aware when bodily sensations are hijacking me? That’s hard work.

"Just as a flower unfolds in silence and its scent worships its Creator in silence, the interior soul must do likewise.” - Sister Marie-Aimée de Jésus OCD in The Twelve Degrees of Silence (P54).

On Friday, I went for a walk in Mary Young Park, a lush oasis on the banks of the Willamette River in a suburb of Portland. Well-trodden paths meander through tall coastal redwoods and sitka spruce, big leaf maple and western red cedar, ponderosa pine and a small stand of old Oregon white oak. The river flows wide and deep at this time of the year...

"We must learn to speak according to our own inner truth, as far as we can perceive it. We must learn to say what we really mean in the depth of our souls, not what we think we are expected to say...” - Thomas Merton in Spiritual Direction & Meditation