Combination Swell

December in SoCal seems to be the perfect time for some big waves. Over the past three years, the day after Christmas -- literally the same day -- has been a big day. This year, not as big as predicted, but in 2023? It was huge. It was the 10-12 foot waves at Blackies that year that blew my mind! I wrote about how we got wiped out in a surf lesson the day before the big surf arrived, because we got caught in the leading edge of the swell. These December big surf events are often the result of combo swell. From Surf Sensei, a combination swell typically means that two swells are coming from different directions or angles and hitting the beach in the same place at the same time. The wave heights combine to create really big waves.

Storm approaching Blackies, sunset, December 23, 2025. The outline of Catalina Island sits behind a ship at the horizon line. Definitely NOT a combo swell moment at Blackies. Waves barely overhead for the plovers!

In SoCal, we get swell from at least two main directions: Pacific Northwest (winter months) and Southern Pacific (summer months). There are usually storms happening up by Alaska or in the South Pacific that create ground swell.  Ground swell has nothing to do with the ground, which is confusing; all waves are caused by wind. Ground swell is waves caused by big storms way out to sea -- like 1000 miles off the coast. Those big waves travel hundreds of miles across the ocean, organizing themselves and diminishing in size a bit as they go before arriving on shore. During fall and spring, both north and south storm systems can be working, so we get swell from both directions. This is why we always have waves here on the west coast, though the locations of those waves change. For example, Doheny is dead now. No waves in winter. After a couple of weeks of storms in late December, San O and Blackies have calmed way down, so instead we've gone surfing at Bolsa Chica recently. But combo swell means we always have something to surf somewhere. From Central Mexico to San Francisco, there will be waves on the west coast, because we're always in the middle of these storm systems that create waves.

Very small day at our beloved Blackies. Surfline image of swells from the W and WSW, adding up to a 1-2 foot day.

Combo swell can also refer to the combination of ground swell and wind swell (waves caused by wind closer to shore). Surfline always reports three different swells arriving at Blackies, usually one dominant and the others, not so much. Each swell can come from a different direction, but it's really important to pay attention when they are coming from the same direction, because those waves can add up. We've been focused on the swells lately in the group chat. This is a new thing we are aware of -- don't just pay attention to the summary line "1-2 ft," you gotta pay attention to the swells.

Surf Sensei says things like, "Another version of combo swell would be south swell with northwest wind swell. The two storm systems working together -- the big South Pacific ground swell system working with a local northwest wind event -- local wind when it interacts with south swell, it can give that big combo look and feel to the surf." Combo swell equals big waves. Surfing is the most complex thing that I have ever engaged in, because it depends on the ocean and the weather, two of the most complex phenomena in our world. There is always something new to learn. It can be overwhelming, but I feel more accomplished with every detail I understand.

For me, the other most complex phenomenon I have to deal with in my life is relationships. And I got hit with a relational combo swell at the end of December that is really challenging me. Just like the breast biopsy experience last January, I've got another opportunity to face my inner demons, become aware of more deeply held beliefs, and see what I've learned these past couple of years, see how I can navigate things differently. The spiritual path is a spiral, and I have wound my way down another step. Another therapy and mindfulness practical exam, this time related to the internalized, abusive patriarchal agenda that I wrote about last time. In No Time to Lose by Pema Chodron, she writes, "The Buddha assures us that our human birth is ideal, with just the right balance of pleasure and pain. The point is not to squander this good fortune." I think the average took a hit this holiday season, but I'll trust Pema. She quotes Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva, verse 5:

As when a flash of lightning rends the night,

And in its glare shows all the dark black clouds had hid,

Likewise rarely, through the buddhas' power,

Virtuous thoughts rise, brief and transient, in the world.

Again, I'm seeing what has been hidden deep within. By acknowledging these shadows, naming them, welcoming them, understanding them, I can be free of them. But boy, this is hard work.

What Happened

First in chronological order (ground swell from the south), in therapy, BTG screwed up. Big breach. I don't think he did it on purpose, but wow. A mistake tailor-made to the moment I'm in. Second (that northwest wind swell), my father died. After living in a nursing home for 18 months, he was released from his suffering and so were we. He had dementia and was deteriorating physically. He wasn't happy and I'm glad his suffering is over. These emotional swells arrived on the same day and added up to an opportunity to do some serious shadow work. I was devastated and relied on a different combo swell to recover. The source of the pain was BTG and Dad. The source of the healing was also BTG and my meditation practice or mindfulness.

On the spiritual path, I think this stage of the journey is what Joseph Campbell referred to as "Atonement with the Father." After several spirals around the path, we are here now, dealing again with some deeply disturbing issues. #metoo So, please be careful if you read further. Campbell wrote of this stage, "The hero must face his deepest fears, must embrace the very annihilation of body and ego, to complete the ultimate transformation." I'm reminded of my fav, Carl Jung, who said, “Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others, because the world outside of you is only a reflection of the world inside of you.” And another lovely teacher, Donald Rothberg, who said, "The whole aim of mindfulness is to move from reaction to response." This month, the Anukampa class is talking renunciation and identity -- how walking away from some things can be freeing. How our identity is largely based on beliefs and it can be freeing to leave some beliefs behind. Some of those beliefs live in great darkness, and it is the most difficult thing to face our own darkness.

South Swell

Last time, I wrote about the bikini modeling and all it brought up: connections to pornography, difficulties with my neglectful father, and the devastating effects of living in a sexist world as a young girl. I quoted Lama Rod Owens who wrote, "I am haunted by how we are born into this world beautiful ones and how that beauty gets broken up into little pieces. And then, broken up, we go about trying to collect the little pieces of our beauty while calling the gathering a life. It is the labor of re-membering not being that occupies our living." And I wrote, "But some of my broken pieces might be too far gone. I worry about those blind spots. They spell danger to me."

Well, the specificity of the breach with BTG that came mere days after I published this post hit like a drone strike. BTG shared his screen in session with me in order to share a quote. I didn't see this during the session, but took a screen shot of the quote to review later with his permission. When I looked at the screen shot later, I noticed his bookmarks were open. And in the list of bookmarks were links to websites for sex dolls and one for pornhub. I was stunned. Speechless. Devastated.

Mistakes are one thing. But. How incredibly specific.

The spiritual path doesn't fuck around.

I read once that on the way down around the path to heal the goddess wound, the temptress, the mother, the Road of Trials takes its time. But the way up? Atonement with the Father goes pretty quickly. So here we go.

/trigger warning/

That night was rough. For me, combining a feeling of surprise or shock with the word porn or sex has some very specific and awful connections in my memory. When I was a child, I remembered seeing my Dad watching porn and having magazines around the house available for his tiny daughters' view. His near total lack of presence with us. I remembered a friend who was into BDSM and let me know that by meeting me at a bar in a harness with ideas of how our night should be spent. I remembered the first time I was assaulted at 14 years old. I was at a friend's house sitting on the floor playing a video game and the boy was seated on the couch behind me. I can still feel in my body how hard that high school boy squeezed my left breast after he suddenly stuck his hand down my shirt from behind. A friend saw it happen and said to me, "You see? I told you he liked you."

I remembered a particularly brutal sexual assault when I was at grad school in Iowa. That one being notable, because the man thought he did a good job -- he thought I enjoyed what he was doing. Was surprised when I called him a cab to take him home seconds after it ended. I remembered the most recent assault with a personal trainer who got handsy during a post-workout massage, and others that happened over time. I remembered my former partner's ongoing program of sexual harassment. He just wouldn't quit. And the man I wrote about who died last summer, the love of my life? I remembered the worst day I ever spent with him. He was mad at me for something, so he took a little revenge. He used a slang term for me at a work event we attended, introducing me around to his colleagues as his "little spadger." Spadger turned out to be a word that is slang for female genitalia in the country where he lived.

Humiliating. Shocking. Devastating. So many memories of such awful things. As I recalled all of these events, I became aware of the brutality and dehumanizing nature of them. "As when a flash of lightning rends the night, And in its glare shows all the dark black clouds had hid...." I never saw this about myself: that I have been dehumanized. And that I have internalized that dehumanization, all that dark. I have some PTSD around some of these events -- the flashbacks and generalized fear, staying away from men and being super jumpy and nervous when I'm around them 1:1, and many negative thoughts about myself. I thought that there was something deeply wrong with me that these things kept happening to me. I thought that men could sense something in me that made them treat me this way. That my deep shame at being born an unwanted child was somehow visible, a core of rottenness that they could sense somehow. That I was trash and therefore they could treat me that way. That somehow, I deserved it.

/it's over now, you can read again from here/

It was a rough night, all provoked by BTG's mistake and the possibility that it might have happened again. Had I attracted another man into my life who would humiliate and abuse me? How had I misjudged him so completely? Why does this keep happening?

What. The. Fuck. When I saw the links, I immediately flashed on an image of BTG like I saw my dad -- someone so lonely and disconnected from his family that he would turn to porn to assuage that loneliness. I immediately knew that was my dad's story and perhaps not BTG's, so I saw right away that I was imposing my own preconceptions onto this situation. Instead of running away with my hair on fire, I decided to do something different. I called two friends and freaked out with them. They held me so well. So grateful for my surf sisters. They validated my feelings, listened as I cried, and gave me sound advice. I was completely right in my thinking that this was bad. Epistemic trust was lining up: external sources of information were confirming my internal source. This was bad.

But this was also BTG. Someone who I trusted and built a relationship with over two years. It just didn't make sense. Maybe my "good dad" could have just made a mistake somehow? Maybe this was somehow professionally related? Again, I tried something different. Instead of ghosting him, I emailed BTG when I recovered the power of language. Simply stated what I saw and that I didn't think I could continue with him. This just hit too close to home for me. He emailed back right away, apologizing profusely and owning the mistake, explaining it as a professionally-related set of links. Again, the sources of epistemic trust lined up: even he owned the breach. This was bad. I decided again that this was an opportunity to do things differently. I decided to meet with him one more time to see what might be on the other side of this breach. How do normally healthy and balanced people deal with making mistakes and hurting each other? Due to the Christmas holiday and the funeral, the appointment wasn't for two more weeks.

Northwest Wind Swell

I realized BTG's breach one night, and when I woke up the next day, I found out my dad died. So, in effect, both of my dads died the same day: my real dad, who in my conception was "the bad father," who abandoned me and left a gigantic hole within me, and my therapist father-figure, who I classified as "the good father," the one who was healing me. The good father, the bad father, the need for and absence of a father. What grew in that absence. All of that died in a very concrete way that morning. I had put the mantle of father figure on BTG, that's the form my transference takes, and he crashed that down very effectively by collapsing the good and bad father into one. But that good/bad dichotomy is a trap. This was an opportunity to heal that split.

I think about the abandonment of my father as leaving an empty space for those internal thoughts of rottenness to grow, but when I found out he died, I was filled with warmth for him. I loved him. He had a great sense of humor, so much of what I love comes from him -- humor, sports, old movies -- and I was sad that he was gone. I was sad that he couldn't connect with us, that he appeared to not want to connect with us. That he and my mom struggled so much and seemed to actually hate one another in the end. That he was an alcoholic. I tried to throw him a birthday party for his 50th birthday. I held it at the bar he was always at to make it easy. And no one came. Even then, he didn't really have any friends. So, in a moment of remembrance on the day he died, marked by an evening sitting on the beach watching a storm come in, my bad father just seemed sad. I held my own funeral for him: a New Year's Eve meditation event with Upaya Zen Center. They put his name on their altar and included him in a ceremony in which they burn the names of the dead from that year. So, I sat in meditation and honored my dad on my own before I went home for the family funeral. The "bad dad" wasn't all bad in the end. I could see the difficulty as well as the good.

Riding the Combo

During the next two weeks, I rode the massive wave of this combo swell. The healing combo was mindfulness and therapy -- culminating in the appointment with BTG himself. Mindfulness allowed me to take a step back and observe what was happening in my mind. I have so many stories in my head around this! Such a huge wound. And I got to re-experience this wound in real time from this new perspective in my present, as an adult. I was not the little wounded kid any more. The adult me could hold the child me while she freaked out. The 57-year old me could hold the14-, 20-, and 30-year old me while they remembered awful experiences. I was sometimes in it -- just inside the memories and thoughts and chaos going on in my mind -- but most of the time, I was observing it.

I could observe my initial shock and internal disintegration, just like the still face experiment child in the videos online. The initial shock of the breach was overwhelming and triggered that attachment wound. I observed the immediate assumption of loneliness and disconnection that was my dad's story. The memories of assaults were rough -- I was sometimes fully in those memories, getting retraumatized, and sometimes able to keep a foot in the present. I found myself waking up each day in a different place with it all, seeming to wake up to a conversation already in progress in my head. Like these thoughts were spiraling without my consent or participation, even in my sleep.

After about three days of this, I got really curious. I thought, "If this is where I am today in comparison to yesterday, where will I be tomorrow?" I observed the thoughts and emotions and watched them rise and fall, arrive and pass away. Pema wrote, "The mahayana teachings usually tell us that it's neurosis that is transient and insubstantial, like clouds in a clear blue sky. When we're having our emotional upheavals, the buddhas and bodhisattvas don't see us as stupid or hopeless; they see our confusion as mere trouble weather, ephemeral and fleeting, passing through our skylike mind." I got to witness so much that had been buried deep.

I took a tour through self-blame, of course. My default mode. It showed me how my mind has been conditioned by these lifelong experiences of brutality, humiliation, and dehumanization. I wondered, "What did I do to deserve this?" Thinking BTG did it on purpose. Did I offend him? Did he just hate working with me and this was a quick and targeted way to get rid of me? I wondered why I thought these thoughts, and recalled how so many men in my life growing up would do anything to avoid breaking up with a woman directly. They would create elaborate scenarios that would make the woman break up with them. I recalled how men sought their little revenges on me when they were angry with me. I recognized that I was trained to think this way. Conditioned. Self-blame was internalized from the actual blame of others.

I felt real uncertainty about what was crazy thinking and what was real. A lifetime of external sources of information disagreeing with my own internal sense of reality impaired my ability to assess this situation. A lack of epistemic trust has real consequences -- no ground under me at all. So, I outsourced my agency to other experts: called friends, called other therapists I knew, put up a Reddit thread. I observed real doubts around my ability to trust myself around this issue, because it is so explosive to me. I looked up what a "real" apology would look like and how therapists go about healing breaches, because I actually didn't know what I would need to feel better.

I realized that I've never had a partner who could sit in the mess with me. Neither my parents nor others. My former partners, whether friends or lovers, always got really defensive when a conflict arose. I could never just state my needs and have someone respond to them in a positive way, so I rarely ever spoke up for fear of eliciting a pointless conflict. None of my relationships had ever survived a real breach. So, this was indeed a real chance to experience something different if BTG could hold his own. Could I trust him to do that? I decided to try. I mean, really, I had nothing to lose at that point: my good dad was dead along with the real one.

The Crest of the Wave

Finally, my mind stopped spinning so frantically. It took several days. I was lucky to be on vacation, so I could allow all of this to unravel as it wanted to. I went to my yoga class a week after the day this happened, and, unusually, there were a bunch of men in class that night. I was terrified to be in a room with so many men. My mind was spinning, my body was in a constant state of alarm. When I got home, I was exhausted. My mind was trying so hard to figure this out, and it just couldn't do it. My good dad and bad dad split could not be solved in a cognitive way.

Something interesting happened at that point: I felt my brain fill with fuzz and my body fill with lead and I just stopped. I laid down in bed and didn't move for two days. I just... stopped. I barely ate. I cancelled plans. I was aware that I was filled with fear. Abject terror. The only thought that ran around my head was that if I misjudged BTG, then who else have I misjudged? I couldn't trust anything or anyone. The ground under my feet absolutely fell away. This was the crest of the wave. I used the self-compassion practices and spoke so kindly to myself during all of this. I spoke to my internal child and attempted to soothe her. So while inside of a body that couldn't move, I could still observe it. I could see what was happening and respond to it in a positive, healing way. Self-compassion, kindness, was the only thing that made sense.

After those two days, the fuzz lifted. I could move again. In a burst of energy, I cleaned the house. Ate a big lunch. I saw it all. I saw the whole wave and how it passed by. I was peaceful, had gained some perspective. Saw my beliefs, journaled a lot. Used empty chair activities -- did a lot of talking aloud to myself, to Dad, and to BTG. Saw a lot of beliefs that I still hold that I no longer need to hold. It was WORK. Turns out, therapy with BTG helped me handle the breach with BTG. I had a ton of strategies.

The Funeral

Then I went home for the funeral. Michigan. Dead of winter. Snowing, windy, 5 degrees. It felt like one of those movies in which the main character returns to her grim Midwestern homeland for a reckoning. I kept a time-limited boundary on this trip: I got in the night before the funeral and left the day after. It was a challenging experience due to many factors, most of all the complexity of the grief. On the day of the funeral, my mother behaved in a way that didn't allow anyone else to have a normal mourning experience: there was no service, just a burial; no priest or chaplain; no talking about Dad on the way to or from the funeral (a two-hour drive each way). No one was allowed to say anything at the burial. She spent the afternoon alone in her office filing the life insurance claims, having received the death certificates at the burial. She never asked me how I was; I was there for her. I asked her questions and let her talk. I say this without resentment right now -- it's just a fact. I no longer expect my mother to provide emotional resources for me. She is in survival mode and I have reached the shore of equanimity. I'm in a better place. For the short time I was present, I could just be there with and for her. And maintain my own experience of my father and mourn this loss.

I know this emotional wave-riding experience helped me get to a different place, because I could sit with my mother and ask her things that I've never been able to ask her before. I asked her how she was repeatedly throughout the visit. At first, she said she was fine. She said sharply after the burial at lunch, "I'm fine. I've got the death certificates now. We can turn those in to the insurance companies and get some money." Later, I asked again, in a more private and softer setting. She said his death was a relief, my dad was really bad at the end. He was violent and nasty, yelled at her often. She said, "There are some things I will never forgive him for." And then she told me some stories that I never knew about how awfully my father treated her. I think my dad was a very troubled person, maybe just a terrible human being. And I'm not surprised I soaked up the resentment and anger and rage that was swirling around my childhood home and internalized that into myself as a rottenness, a shame.

I wondered why my mom stayed in the marriage, but I didn't ask that one. Felt a bit like blaming the victim in that moment, so that question will have to wait for another day. These stories put her reaction into perspective for me. She is glad to be rid of him for many good reasons. Even if I could find some love and warmth for the memory of my father, I want to completely validate her apparent inability to do so. She experienced decades of abuse. Which also might explain her behavior when I was young a bit more clearly. There was no room to take care of children when you are being emotionally abused. She had no bandwidth to be emotionally present for children.

And if this whole experience is Campbell's Atonement with the Father stage, and I have successfully navigated it, then I am nearing the end of this round of the spiritual path and close to getting a boon. One of those boons was gifted to me by my mom on this trip for my bravery in asking this question: I asked her about the circumstances around my birth. I was asking about when they met and started dating, and she said they got married quickly. I said, "You got married quickly because you got pregnant with me, right?"

She said no. They were engaged before getting pregnant with me. So, there was shame around the situation -- they got pregnant before getting married -- but they loved each other when I was conceived. I was wanted. So the whole story that has organized my life -- that I was an unwanted child, the source of the shame -- was not true. All of the stories I told myself, all of them spoke of an internal, inborn rottenness. That I was born from a wickedness, an immorality, that left a stain on me, the unwanted child. That my very existence was shameful. And I somehow wore that shame in a way that others could see or sense. That men could sense that shame as a vulnerability they could exploit for their own ends.

It's not true.

None of that is true.

That knowledge is worth the cost of this journey.

If this story can be rewritten, then anything can be rewritten. I am not rotten. The world has conspired to make me feel less than human. Dehumanized. Objectified. Today, I can claim my joy and my agency, some new version of truth, goodness, and beauty that now applies to me. That I can be released from this mental carceral state, just as my dad was released from his physically; I can set myself free from this prison of beliefs that exists in my mind. I renounce these stories. They no longer define my identity. I can learn a new way to be.

The Shore

So how did BTG do in our session? He was great. He owned the breach. Said I was right, it was bad. That some therapists and clients would not recover from this kind of breach. Apologized profusely. He sat with me, abided calmly while I told him what I experienced in the combo swell of emotions. He kept our container intact, continued to be my therapist even though he was the source of the issue we were discussing. He cared for me. Asked me questions. He explained why those links were there (one related to another client who he sought an ethics consult about and the others related to a study group on paraphilia), and it all sounded true to me. There was no hedging, no defensiveness, no gaslighting or avoiding or minimizing my emotions or reaction. I expressed everything. And he allowed me to express everything and sat there solid through it all. I don't know if he was reacting internally, but he never let me see it if he was. He was his normal steady presence.

I shared all of my stories with him. The point of all of those stories of assaults and abusive behavior I told was to let us both know that I had been treated as less than human, and these stories might be impeding my ability to hear him. I needed an explanation for why those links were there, I needed to know he didn't do it on purpose, but I also needed to know that he was human with me. So I asked him if this situation was hard for him, and he said that when he saw my email, "Heartbreak. Absolute heartbreak. It was a lock and key fit." He seemed upset that he could hurt me like that, seemed actually surprised at himself for the specificity of the error and that he allowed any error to happen.

And that was all I needed. The acknowledgement of the specificity of the mistake and its effect -- he already knew and felt awful about it. He empathized. He got it. He stayed consistent as BTG -- a Buddhist is going to feel awful when they hurt someone and have compassion. He did. He was not like the other men who hurt me. This was a new experience. Someone who hurt me knew they hurt me and apologized. Sat with me in the mess. All the sources of epistemic trust lined up. I was important enough to be apologized to. And it felt so good. Something in my spine grew more solid for the experience. I wondered what it would have been like to have grown up with such experiences being the norm. The world would feel solid and trustworthy. I felt it for a moment.

Healing the Split

So, did I heal a split? Did the bad dad end up bad again and the good dad end up good again after all of this? Sort of. They are both a bit of a mess actually. Definitely not as clear. They are human. It isn't about being perfect and never hurting one another; humans are going to hurt each other. I think I learned that as long as you have a partner who truly respects and cares for you, they will stick with you. That people who love you will abide with you while you sort out your shit. The bad dad -- too sad to be a dad -- was not great because he didn't abide with me. He abandoned me. He left me to fend for myself in a world that took advantage of me. He didn't help. The good dad -- the imperfect good dad -- stayed. It's as simple as that.

Loving someone who isn't there is a terrible loss. In many ways, the conflict with BTG gave me something to grieve. When I found out my dad died, there was warmth for a brief time, but not much else. There was an emptiness. I cried at his funeral, but I'm not sure why I was crying. I think I was crying for the lack of a dad. In a way, I hitched the grief for my real father onto the crisis with BTG. Mindful Self-Compassion says love reveals everything unlike itself; we only know things through contrast. BTG has been a presence in my life. My dad was an absence. How do you grieve something that wasn't really there? It was easier to grieve the possible loss of BTG than it was the actual loss of my dad.

I collected more of my broken parts in the past couple of weeks. Rode a huge wave of emotion, weathered a huge emotional storm. It has been overwhelming, but with every emotional wave I ride successfully, I feel like I can handle more. Just like the details about combo swells, I feel more accomplished, more powerful, better able to handle what life throws at me. This has been an ordeal, for sure. What I make of it remains to be seen. I've been agitated and uncomfortable for weeks now. The inside of my skin feels like sandpaper. I haven't slept well, tossing and turning more than usual. I'm crying easily, at inopportune moments, out of the blue. Grief. Sorrow. There is so much to mourn here. I'm still processing. There is still fuzz in my head; I'm having a hard time paying attention to anything for long. Perhaps my brain is reorganizing itself into something new; a great rooting out of old beliefs going on in there. Releasing what is no longer serving me.

Sharing my stories out loud makes them different: puts some space between me and them. I can hear myself talk and hearing my own stories changes my relationship to them. If I heard someone else say these things, I would have enormous compassion for the person speaking. It's not easy reliving dehumanization. It will take great care and time to heal.

On The Life of a Showgirl album, "Eldest Daughter" has become one of my favorite songs for this line, "I thought that I'd never find that beautiful, beautiful life that shimmers that innocent light back...." My experiences took away an innocence from me. I thought I didn't deserve a sweet and innocent life. Maybe now I can gather myself into a new form and find that innocence, but I don't know how yet. The waves are still rolling toward shore from different directions. BTG said, "Part of the work is realizing the deprivation and abuse of your childhood is not deserved." There is no deserve in this new world. We layer meaning on top of the random circumstances of our lives. Perhaps now I can find a new meaning here, step out of my stories and into something new -- or step out of stories altogether and just be here, now, seeing what's real. But I'm not sure I see myself as fully human yet -- the internalized, abusive patriarchal agenda has left a mark, like a stamp on a wax seal. After so many years, my mind has indentations, habits, beliefs, that are not easily overcome.

So many new experiences in the past few weeks are sanding down those indentations. People showed up for me in new ways. My feelings and perceptions were validated. I feel safer in a way now that Dad is gone and I can relate to my mom in a new way. So much good has come from this. Pema wrote, "Instead of experiencing our hang-ups as solid and everlasting, rather than definitely believing they're 'me,' we could say, 'This is just weather, it will pass. This is not the fundamental state.' From Shantideva's perspective, these glimpses of bodhi mind have great power. Everyone knows what it's like for the clouds to part, even briefly, and to feel a sense of potential and possibility. Without this initial or ongoing flash, we'd never be inspired to investigate this path."

Once aware of my stories, then I can tell a better story. A better story gives me peace with what has happened to me. I can keep retelling it, keep finding new little edits to make, in order to tell a story that gives meaning and purpose to the experience. And then maybe, I can let it go. I can tell a better story until I can let go of the story. And every time I let go of a story, I see differently. The world changes. The weather and the waves always change. For now, I'm letting this story settle.