What would I do if I were in the same position as...?

Is life fair?

How do we recommit ourselves to love after suffering?

I've noticed in my son a strong development of conscience over the last two years. I recognize in him many feelings of anguish that I felt as a kid -- and now as an adult -- when I recognized I did wrong and hurt another, especially in moments in which I lacked emotional regulation. The disappointment in myself, the feeling that I had let my loved ones down, or fear of losing their' trust and esteem, all brought me low to the point of tears. Tears that resulted not from anger

As a parent, often we feel that our job is to protect our children from pain and relieve their suffering, and I honestly struggle with that a lot. If the goal is to avoid inflicting pain and suffering on another being, then the rational mind insists that I should never have had a child at all, because life is unavoidably full of both. (Well... oops.) So, what now?

How often are we held hostage by our past? Past pain, past hurts, past trauma holding us back from giving ourselves completely into a particular job, relationship, or experience. We carry and recreate the suffering in our minds again and again in a way that prevents us from living wholly in the present. Where does this way of being come from?

What do you think, is it pain or joy that makes us bloom? 🌺

Michael Meade writes in "Fate and Destiny" that we all experience pain, which emerges when our smaller, egoic selves obscure the greater...