| During this month's main talk, Eckhart says, "One of the best spiritual practices is to observe in you—in any given situation—the arising of any form of unhappiness and see where it comes from." In the coming month, we encourage you to engage with this exercise as many times as you can remember in the moment. This is a fairly quick and simple practice—but in our experience, it's also a powerful one. Negative emotions are an inevitable part of life, but they don't need to rule every one of your perceptions and decisions. By recognizing, naming, allowing, and investigating these emotions as they occur, you can consciously step between the initial feeling and the egoic self's tendency to attach completely to it. As such, when you feel something like frustration, anger, sadness, or disappointment, take that precious moment between the stimulus and the response to inquire within. Engage in a quick Presence practice if the emotion is particularly powerful. As Eckhart teaches, unhappiness or displeasure most often arises because our egoic "small self" is resisting the form of the present moment. What is it in this moment that you are resisting? And why is your ego making such a fuss about it? A simple moment of recognition is often more than enough to defuse the charge of a negative emotion. When you make the conscious decision to explore your emotions as they arise, what do you discover? Please visit our community Facebook group and share your experience. As always, we look forward to hearing about your journey. | 