Can You Handle This? | Tara Brach
This episode features Dr. Tara Brach, a clinical psychologist and meditation teacher, discussing her book "Trusting the Gold." She explains how to overcome the "trance of unworthiness" by accepting difficult emotions and reconnecting with inherent goodness, offering tools to expand self-acceptance and happiness.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to the 'Getting Unstuck' Series and Tara Brach
Understanding the 'Trance of Unworthiness' and 'The Gold'
Two Pathways to Trusting Inherent Goodness
The Golden Buddha Metaphor for Self-Discovery
Meditative Process for Disentangling Self-Identification
Tara's Personal Experience with Unworthiness and Healing
Shifting from a 'Small I' to Wholeness and Non-Separation
Exploring Basic Goodness Versus Badness
Navigating the 'Second Arrow' of Self-Judgment
From White Guilt to Heartbreak: Processing Racial Conditioning
Newspaper Meditation: Transforming Anger into Caring
Reconciling Prayer with Secular Meditation
Understanding Love as an Omnidirectional Force
Acceptance as the Boundary to Freedom
Tara's Struggles with Her Teacher Persona (Failure and Inflation)
'We Are Friends' Meditation and Speciesism
6 Key Concepts
Trance of Unworthiness
This is a state where individuals identify with their perceived deficiencies, spiraling into negativity about who they are and how they are in the world. It involves taking one's personality, body, successes, or failures as the entirety of their being, often leading to a feeling of being 'down on oneself' or 'caught in a small place'.
The Gold (Buddha Nature)
This refers to an inherent, deeper goodness, sacredness, and beauty that exists within all life, beyond personal flaws or egoic coverings. It represents the potential for love, wonder, and tenderness that feels more like one's true 'home' than constricted, negative states.
Coverings (Ego Strategies)
These are protective mechanisms, such as defensiveness, aggression, trying to prove oneself, or attaching to an inflated or 'bad' sense of self, developed to navigate a difficult world. Individuals often mistakenly identify with these coverings, thereby obscuring their innate 'gold'.
Second Arrow
Originating from Buddhist texts, the first arrow is the initial pain of a difficult emotion (like fear, anger, or shame) spontaneously arising. The second arrow is the subsequent act of judging oneself or adding negative self-attribution for experiencing that initial emotion, making the suffering worse.
Newspaper Meditation
This is a practice where one pauses after encountering upsetting news or experiences, feels the anger or other strong emotions in the body, and then intentionally opens to and explores the deeper layers of those feelings, such as fear and grief. The goal is to move through these layers to reach a core of caring, enabling a more intelligent and healing response to the world.
Speciesism
This is the belief in human superiority over non-human animals, leading to their objectification and use to satisfy human desires. This mentality is seen as contributing to environmental destruction and a fragmentation of the sense of connection within the web of life.
8 Questions Answered
Trusting the gold means trusting a deeper part or expression of one's being, beyond personality, body, or achievements. It involves recognizing moments of love, wonder, or tenderness as glimmers of one's true, inherent goodness, even amidst self-doubt or a 'trance of unworthiness'.
By bringing mindfulness and self-compassion to feelings of shame, judgment, or unworthiness, and staying with them somatically, space and tenderness emerge. This process allows one to sense deeper dimensions of their being and reconnect with a more whole sense of self, shifting identity from the 'coverings' to inherent loving essence.
While not cognitively provable, viewing inherent goodness, love, or awareness as primordial is pragmatic because it leads to experiencing more love, being less defensive, and being more open in daily life. This assumption serves as a useful guide for how one engages with the world and uses their resources.
The 'second arrow' refers to the judgment and self-blame we add on top of initial, spontaneously arising painful emotions like fear, anger, or shame. The first arrow is the initial difficult emotion itself, and the second is the self-inflicted suffering of making oneself wrong for having that emotion.
By allowing guilt to be present and then opening to the realness of the pain experienced by others, which can lead to pure grieving. This shift from individual badness to collective suffering fosters tenderness, openness, and a commitment to being part of the response and repair, rather than getting stuck in denial or anger, which can unconsciously perpetuate the problem.
For Tara, prayer is not about a small self praying to an Almighty, but rather a longing to remember, connect with, and experience a larger truth or reality that one may have temporarily forgotten. It's about consciously recognizing what truly matters and aspiring to wake up or 'come home' to that deeper sense of being or awareness.
The extent to which one can accept what is present, including difficult emotions or aspects of oneself, directly mirrors the extent of one's freedom. Deep acceptance, which is akin to love, dissolves resistance and the sense of a separate self, leading to the realization of non-separation and greater liberation.
Recognizing the inherent goodness and relatedness to all sentient beings, including animals, helps cut through speciesism (the belief in human superiority). This shift from objectifying animals to viewing them as 'friends' fosters a sense of belonging to the whole web of life, leading to actions that come from caring and remembrance rather than violation, such as adopting a plant-based diet for the sake of the planet, health, and ethical alignment.
27 Actionable Insights
1. Stare at Your Own Ugliness
Instead of feeding, fleeing, or numbing difficult aspects of your personality (e.g., rage, selfishness), consciously choose to look at them with clarity and warmth. This is presented as a “baller psychological move” and a “classic Buddhist thing” to address inner demons.
2. Suspend Skeptical Resistance
If you are a skeptic, try to temporarily suspend any resistance you might feel towards new ideas or advice. This openness can allow you to find otherwise compelling and practical insights.
3. Actively Seek Goodness
Counteract the natural negativity bias by purposefully looking for and remembering instances of inherent goodness, such as moments of love, wonder, tenderness, or uncontrived kindness. This practice helps in “trusting the gold” within yourself and the world.
4. Identify Core Longings
Consciously identify your deepest longings, aspirations, and what truly matters to you in life. Regularly pause to remember these core values, as this connects you to a sense of purpose and energizes your path, akin to a form of “prayer.”
5. Hold Ego Coverings with Kindness
Recognize your ego strategies (e.g., defensiveness, aggression, proving oneself, inflated or bad self-perception) as protective “coverings” rather than your true self. Learn to hold these coverings with kindness and reconnect with a more whole sense of your being.
6. Adopt “Trust The Gold” Mantra
Use “trust the gold” as a personal mantra or guide to remember your inherent goodness when you find yourself hooked by negativity bias or identifying with your ego’s coverings. This practice helps shift your perspective towards a deeper, embodied truth.
7. Attend to Feelings of Wrongness
When experiencing feelings of shame, judgment, or unforgiveness, intentionally deepen your attention to these sensations in a somatic way. Bring gentleness and presence to these feelings, allowing space, tenderness, and awareness to emerge.
8. Feel Emotions in Your Body
To process difficult emotions like unworthiness or shame, physically locate and feel them in your body (e.g., a twist in the heart, an ache in the belly). Sit with these bodily sensations and breathe with them to engage with the experience directly.
9. Place Hand on Heart for Kindness
When sitting with difficult emotions or a sense of unworthiness, place your hand on your heart as a gesture of kindness and self-compassion. This physical act can help keep company with the experience.
10. Listen to Emotional Needs
After feeling difficult emotions in your body, actively listen to what the emotion needs or what message it conveys. For example, a feeling of unworthiness might need the message “trust I am lovable.”
11. Affirm Self-Love & Seek Universal Love
Actively send messages of self-acceptance and love to yourself, and from a sincere place, “call on the universe” or a larger reality for loving support. This sincerity can create a “porousness” that allows love and connection to enter.
12. Acknowledge “This Belongs”
When unpleasant experiences such as shame, judgment, anger, or fear arise, acknowledge them by silently or verbally stating, “this belongs.” This act of honest acknowledgment and making peace with reality helps to open up space and cultivate tenderness.
13. Purposefully Cultivate Warmth
Recognize that developing warmth and kindness towards difficult experiences often requires purposeful effort. This is especially true if you have a history of hardening, armoring, or dissociating from your body and heart.
14. Avoid Second Arrow of Self-Judgment
When difficult emotions or experiences (e.g., insecurity, fear, anger, shame) spontaneously arise, avoid adding a “second arrow” of self-judgment or negative self-attribution. Acknowledge the initial pain without making yourself wrong for feeling it.
15. Meet Your Edge and Soften
Gradually and compassionately approach the “edge” of what you can accept or feel in your experience, softening any resistance as much as possible. This practice, done at its own pace, helps expand your sense of freedom.
16. Utilize RAIN Practice for Emotions
Employ the RAIN practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) to engage with your most difficult emotions. This method helps you to cultivate a radically different relationship with these feelings, transforming them into a portal for self-discovery and living with more love.
17. Build Safety & Connection Resources
Before deeply engaging with difficult emotions or trauma, proactively build internal and external resources that create a sense of safety and connection. This helps to develop the neuropathways and resilience needed to touch into and process what is difficult.
18. Gradually Re-enter Traumatic Feelings
If you have experienced trauma and dissociation, commit to gradually and carefully re-entering and feeling the associated pain, hurt, wounds, and betrayals in your body. This process must be undertaken with sufficient resources and support to prevent re-traumatization.
19. Shift from Guilt to Heartbreak
When confronted with collective suffering or historical injustices (e.g., related to white supremacy), consciously shift your internal response from individual guilt to pure grieving and heartbreak. This allows for tenderness, openness, and a deeper commitment to being part of the solution.
20. Embrace Discomfort and Grieve
For white individuals, actively engage with discomfort and allow for grieving related to the suffering caused by white supremacy and its conditioning. This process is presented as a necessary step to be part of the healing and to overcome “fragility.”
21. Process News-Induced Emotions
When inflamed by news or external events, practice “newspaper meditation”: pause, feel the anger, then open to the fear underneath it, and then to the grieving for loss, ultimately connecting to the underlying caring. This process enables responses that heal rather than perpetuate suffering.
22. Remember Essential Life Force in Others
Even when dealing with individuals whose actions are harmful or whom you might judge severely, strive to remember that an essential life force, awareness, and value lives through them. This perspective helps maintain a broader, more compassionate view without ignoring their actions.
23. Communicate Vulnerability Openly
After engaging in inner work to process your own vulnerabilities, communicate them openly and without blame to loved ones. This act can create space for them to share their own vulnerabilities, fostering deeper connection.
24. Sense Shared Sentience
Practice sensing the shared “sentience” or “awareness” that animates all beings, including other people, animals, and nature. By paying attention to this common life force, the perceived boundaries of separateness can dissolve, fostering a deeper sense of connection.
25. Practice “We Are Friends” Meditation
Engage in a “we are friends” meditation by consciously acknowledging your relatedness to all beings, from pets and trees to animals in factory farms. This practice cultivates a profound sense of belonging, challenges speciesism, and can inspire actions that cherish all life.
26. Discuss Sensitive Topics with Empathy
When discussing sensitive topics, such as dietary choices, acknowledge and validate the potential for guilt or reactivity in others. Share your personal motivations (e.g., joy, connectedness, peace) without judgment, respecting that everyone must find their own pathway.
27. Surrender Ego Struggles
When struggling with persistent ego-driven personas (e.g., “special person” or “deficient self”), recognize that “a self can’t get rid of a part of a self.” Instead, practice letting go of the struggle and surrendering, allowing for non-identification and a feeling of freedom.
7 Key Quotes
Trusting the gold means to trust a deeper part of our being or a deeper expression of our being.
Tara Brach
The other pathway is to go ahead and deepen our attention to the feeling that something's wrong, to where we're ashamed, where we're judgmental, where we're unforgiving. And this takes training. It takes real practice, but stay with those feelings in a real somatic way and bring as much gentleness and presence as we can to them.
Tara Brach
We take ourselves to be those coverings, the ego, and we forget the gold.
Tara Brach
True acceptance is another way of saying love. Like if we totally allow.
Tara Brach
Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed, that this is the ancient and eternal way.
Tara Brach
Wisdom tells me I'm nothing. Love tells me I'm everything. And between the two, my life flows.
Tara Brach
The boundary to what I can accept is the boundary to my freedom.
Tara Brach
2 Protocols
Processing Difficult Emotions (Newspaper Meditation)
Tara Brach- Encounter upsetting news or an inflammatory event.
- Pause from the source (e.g., put down the newspaper) and feel the anger or other strong emotion in the body.
- Bring attention to where the emotion is felt (e.g., chest), breathe with it, and allow it to be as big as it is, acknowledging 'this belongs'.
- If anger is present, explore and be with the underlying fear in the same way.
- If fear is present, explore and open to the underlying grieving for loss.
- Continue opening until a core of caring is revealed.
- Respond to the world from this place of caring, rather than anger, to promote healing.
'We Are Friends' Meditation
Tara Brach- Connect with a beloved animal or aspect of nature (e.g., a dog, a sycamore tree) and internally affirm, 'We are friends,' feeling a tender relatedness.
- Widen this feeling to include other beings in the world, such as the billions of animals in factory farms (e.g., intelligent pigs, gentle cows, chickens).
- Repeat 'We are friends' for these beings, cultivating a sense of joy in connectedness amidst any sorrow for their suffering.
- Recognize that this practice helps to dissolve speciesism and realize one's belonging to the whole web of life, leading to actions that come from caring and remembrance rather than objectification.