My Link to Humanity

The problem is that we have so little tolerance for uncomfortable feelings. I'm not even talking about unpleasant outer circumstances, but that feeling in your stomach of I don't want this to be happening. You try to escape it in some way, but if somehow you could stay present and touch the rawness of the experience, you can really learn something...Go to your body and connect with the physical sensation. It always feels really bad; it's usually a tightening in the throat or the heart of the solar plexus. Stay with that and say to yourself, 'Millions of people all over the world have this kind of discomfort, fear--I don't even have to call it anything--this feeling of not wanting things to be this way. This is my link to humanity.' Connect with the idea that this moment is a shared experience all over the world."

-- Pema Chödrön, O Magazine (Feb. 2008)