Greetings. I'm Tara Brock and I'd like to welcome you to these podcasts. While the

talks and meditations are offered freely, we'd very much appreciate your support. To

make a donation or learn more about my schedule, please visit tarbrach.com and our IMCW.org.

Thank you.

Welcome. I'd like to begin with a quote that's pretty much anonymous, although I've seen versions

of it from Christian philosophers and Buddhists and Gandhi. This is it. The thought becomes

the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into the habit. Habit hardens

into character. Character gives birth to destiny. So watch your thoughts with care and let

them spring from love, born out of respect for all beings. So this is an expression of

karma, which really is saying that causes lead to effects. That when we have certain beliefs

and thoughts, they create certain feelings that then turn into actions and the actions

become habits and those habits end up really creating our sense of identity and if they're

really hardened, become our destiny. And we tend to keep repeating and repeating and

repeating or creatures of habit. So when they create our destiny and when they're based

in fear, these habits, they really become the block in our lives to accessing all that

we can be, to accessing happiness and creativity and in a deep way a sense of our spirit. So I'd

say that one of the deepest expressions of despair that comes my way is when someone will

report that, well, I've been repeating the same pattern of pushing people away, are grasping

on or undermining myself or whatever it is, all my life, as long as I can remember. That's

a feeling of, there's a real feeling of despair because how can I ever change it so deeply

grooved. So tonight's reflection will really be on how we can awaken from these habitual

chains of thinking, feeling, and then acting, this stimulus reaction cycle that we get caught

...