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Namaste and welcome, friends.

Some years ago, a good buddy went to Asia and spent a few months practicing in two different

monasteries.

I'm experienced really deep states of intercom and peace and clarity, real sense of inner

freedom.

And then he went back to the states for the holidays, spent five days with family.

He was astonished at the surges of reactivity.

He watched himself, but he described evolutionary regression.

No.

And we talked together and it was not in any way diminishing the power and the value of

deep retreat, more just honoring the tenacity of the old patterning that keeps coming up

in us that we need to consciously include the stressful places.

We need to include them as an intrinsic part of our spiritual practice.

So here we are in this holiday season and whether you love the holidays or hate the holidays

for most it's stressful.

And then when we're stressed, our wants get exaggerated.

We want things a certain way and our fears about what's going to happen become more focused

and fixated and our confusions and our misunderstandings.

It's just part of the stressful mind.

...