Really Know Yourself

“The enemies of liberal democracy, they have a method: They hack our feelings. Not our emails, not our bank accounts—they hack our feelings of fear and hate and vanity, and then use these feelings to polarize and destroy democracy from within.”

~ Yuval Noah Harari

A Delusional Species

"You see dear reader (speaking frankly, without any intention to offend), you are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging..."

~ John Burdett

Daron LarsonApril 17, 2018John Burdett, coincidence, chance, chaos, humanity, vulnerability, pain, discomfort, suffering, illusion, fearComment

Feeling It for Yourself

"If I could explain what the one biggest shift has been from when I was 17 and suicidal to today and 22 and a lot healthier place, it's just that before I used to try to run away from my pain and tell no one about it, and now I try and run right into it and tell the people closest to me about it."

~ Kevin Breel

Clarity, Equanimity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonSeptember 30, 2015Kevin Breel, depression, egocide, suicide, vulnerability, mental illness, mental health, shame, discomfort, waking up, TEDComment

Too Strong

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

~ Dorothy Walters

Daron LarsonSeptember 15, 2015Dorothy Walters, poetry, vulnerability, broken heart, feelings, emotions, memory, complete experience, joy, love, stillness, pain, discomfortComment

Is This What Being Vulnerable Feels Like?

i’ll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness.

~ Sleeping At Last

Beginning, EquanimityDaron LarsonAugust 19, 2015Sleeping At Last, music, musicians, self, memory, growing up, struggle, risk, intimacy, hope, vulnerability, equanimity, liberation, Martin KlimasComment

A Constant Pestering

I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?

~ Margaret Atwood

Daron LarsonAugust 6, 2015vulnerability, love, yearning, desire, poetry, Margaret AtwoodComment

The Taste of Embarrassment

One of the things I’ve found so remarkable about the approach to mindfulness I practice and teach, is the way it has gradually, yet significantly changed the way I relate to the physicality of my emotions—including the unpleasant ones.

Security is an Illusion

We would be better off if we made peace with insecurity. We’re all vulnerable. It’s all illusion.

~ Simone Cambpell

Clarity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonJune 14, 2015vulnerability, On Being, Simone Campbell, illusion, safety, certaintyComment

180°

"When you feel the sting of separation inside, simply turn inwardly and intuitively around one hundred and eighty degrees and there will be your innocence, your beauty, your completeness. It may seem impossible, but give it a try until you reconnect with what in truth you never lost."

~ Adyashanti

The Beautiful Fragility

Let it come closer, let it engulf you if it must.
Until there is no division between self and sadness.
Until you cannot call it sadness at all.
Until there is only intimacy.

~ Jeff Foster

Feel In, Equanimity, Practice in Stillness, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonDecember 31, 2014sadness, feelings, emotions, equanimity, discomfort, joy, self, intimacy, vulnerabilityComment

Interwoven

A son and his father, I knew
from their looks, the son with his
right hand on the handrail,
the father, left hand on the left,
and in the middle they were
holding hands

~ Ted Kooser

See Out, Feel In, Notice Flow, Friendliness ResistanceDaron LarsonOctober 15, 2014poetry, Ted Kooser, family, connection, vulnerability, aging, kindness, interdependenceComment

The Residue of Fear

"I spent so much of my life telling people the things they wanted to hear instead of the things they needed to, told myself I wasn't meant to be anyone's conscience because I still had to figure out being my own, so sometimes I just wouldn't say anything, appeasing ignorance with my silence." ~ Clint Smith