Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

My roommate has a big hiking trip planned for later this year, so she's been training for it every day to make the experience

less difficult. Another friend is looking for a new job, so he regularly

attends mock interviews in preparation for the real thing. Athletes train, authors interviews and

my

my old indoor volleyball league used to practice jumping on the beach because if you can leap off

sand you feel like you can practically fly at an indoor tournament later on.

Most people have a difficult time letting go even though life continually prepares us for transitions.

Be your grown kids moving out to grandparents passing away, health deteriorating, youth dwindling, and so on.

So what I constantly practice is intentionally letting go of precisely what I fear losing.

It makes life's challenges less of a struggle.

I've even imagined myself getting diagnosed with cancer, for example, just as I have mentally

prepared myself for the inevitable news of my father's death.

It's not about expecting the worst, it's preparing for the likely and or

inevitable now it may sound like I'm torturing myself but going through the

motions in meditation is like training for a marathon. I feel ready.

As Tiknot Han says, when you learn how to suffer, you suffer much less.

So a few years ago I took inventory of everything in my life to which I had grown attached.

Then I purposely got rid of it all.

From outfits I particularly liked to souvenirs from various trips, favorite books, and all of my CDs. Everything was donated.

Now I have five plain gray t-shirts that hold absolutely no sentimental value to me whatsoever,

and if my home was to catch fire there is nothing in it I

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