{"id":6252,"date":"2017-06-19T11:37:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T17:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manyvoices.soundstrue.com\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2020-04-07T18:19:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:19:17","slug":"stop-trying-happy-jeff-foster-held-not-healed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/blog\/stop-trying-happy-jeff-foster-held-not-healed-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Trying to Be Happy: Jeff Foster on Being Held, Not Healed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cYour pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your longings, your fearful thoughts: they ar<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3088 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/manyvoices.soundstrue.com\/manyvoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/bk04929-way-of-rest-published-cover-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"209\" height=\"319\" data-id=\"3088\">e not mistakes, and&nbsp;they are not asking to be \u2018healed.\u2019 They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving, healing arms of present awareness . . .\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There is so much pressure on us these days to \u201cfeel good.\u201d But it\u2019s exactly our attempts to feel good that can make us feel so bad! Conceiving of happiness as a destination rather than the all-embracing non-dual present awareness that we are, we go to war with our unhappiness and feel shame around it. We split ourselves in two and feel far away from Home. I know\u2014I spent much of my life suicidally depressed. These days I love myself exactly as I am; I see the beauty in my imperfections, and I want to share the secrets of self-love with you.<\/p>\n<p>In my new book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soundstrue.com\/store\/the-way-of-rest.html?utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=TWOR_JF\"><em>The Way of Rest<\/em><\/a>, through prose and poetry I invite you\u2014and this sounds like a paradox at first\u2014to stop <em>trying <\/em>to be happy, stop <em>trying <\/em>to awaken or even \u201cheal,\u201d and instead courageously embrace yourself exactly as you are, including your present unhappiness\u2014your painful feelings, your strange thoughts and longings, even your fear and exhaustion. See them all as perfectly placed pieces of you rather than mistakes or aberrations or signs of your failure.<\/p>\n<p>Today, try this:<\/p>\n<p>If you feel sad or afraid, or feel a tension in your body, just for a moment stop trying to \u201clet go.\u201d Forget about \u201craising your vibration\u201d too! Instead, simply be with the discomfort. Get curious about it. Soften around it. Breathe into it. Give it space, room, some time. Forget about understanding, \u201creleasing,\u201d or \u201cfixing\u201d it today and just allow it to be here for as long as it needs to be here. Let it stay if it wants to stay. Let it go if it wants to go! Let it come back if it wants to come back. Treat it like a welcome guest in the vast Rest Home of your being, a beloved child that truly belongs.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re tired of the fight, exhausted from the struggle, fed up with trying to \u201cfit in,\u201d I invite you to discover a deeper kind of healing: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soundstrue.com\/store\/the-way-of-rest.html?utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=TWOR_JF\"><em>The Way of Rest<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With love from yourself,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.soundstrue.com\/store\/jeff-foster-author.html?utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=Social&amp;utm_campaign=JeffFoster\">Jeff Foster<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3089\" src=\"https:\/\/manyvoices.soundstrue.com\/manyvoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/foster_jeff____emily_goodman.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"124\" height=\"186\" data-id=\"3089\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYour pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your longings, your fearful thoughts: they are not mistakes, and&nbsp;they are not asking to be \u2018healed.\u2019 They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly, in the loving, healing arms of present awareness . . .\u201d There is so much pressure on us these days to \u201cfeel good.\u201d But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":5485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[392,381],"tags":[],"contributor":[679],"class_list":["post-6252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-healing","category-self-compassion","contributor-jeff-foster"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stop Trying Happy Jeff Foster Held Not Healed 2<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn about stop trying happy jeff foster held not healed 2 with insights from Sounds True teachers. 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