Sit. Stay. Heal.

You’re having lunch with a few acquaintances and the conversation is humming along nicely. Suddenly, someone makes a comment that seems harsh, perhaps personal. You tense up, close down emotionally.

Depending on your wiring, you might withdraw, slip into battle mode, or feel yourself drifting dangerously near a vortex of unworthiness. Whichever way you go, there’s a tendency to unconsciously weave a story line, one that may exist mostly within your own psyche. Or perhaps you simply repress your reaction all together.

In her book, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears*, Buddhist nun Pema Chodron shares the Tibetan word for this phenomenon~~shenpa, which is commonly translated as “attachment”.

Chodron, however, finds this term too abstract and instead prefers the word “hooked”. Shenpa is about the ways we get hooked, caught up in a series of reactions that can lead us far into the brambles, removing us from a true experience of the moment and complicating our interactions with others.

Expressions of shenpa are as varied as we are. “This is very personal,” Chodron writes. “What was said…triggers you. It might not bother someone else at all, but we’re talking about what touches your sore place.”

Most of the time, we don’t even realize we’re hooked until we’re well into acting out our reactions in some way. But working with shenpa offers another option. If we can catch our initial response before our unconscious reactions have gathered steam, we have, in Chodron’s words, “the possibility of becoming curious about this urge to do the habitual thing, this urge to strengthen a repetitive pattern.”

We can, instead, simply notice our reaction. Feel it physically. Experience its all too familiar emotional and mental qualities. By not acting and, instead, fully experiencing our responses simply as they are, we allow space for something special to occur.

“Our natural intelligence begins to guide us,” Chodron writes. “We begin to foresee the whole chain reaction and where it will lead. There’s some wisdom that becomes accessible to us.” This wisdom, Chodron continues, is “based on compassion for oneself and others that has nothing to do with ego’s fears. It’s the part of us that knows we can connect and live from our basic goodness, our basic intelligence, openness and warmth.”

Refraining from acting out our shenpa does not mean, however, that we refrain from acting. By slowing down and quieting ourselves, we are able to tap into our inner knowing, that intuitive sense that every one of us was born with. Only then can we determine the best way to proceed. Only then can our feet find the path likely to be the most helpful and effective.

Chodron shares another Tibetan concept inherent in this process. Shenluk translates as “renunciation”, another word with layers of meaning. “Renunciation isn’t about renouncing food or sex or your lifestyle,” Chodron clarifies. “We’re talking about loosening our attachment.” In this context, we renounce that strong push to respond in habitual ways. We recognize that pausing is in everyone’s best interest, including our own.

Chodron tells of a gift she once received~~a bone~shaped piece of jewelry engraved with the words, “Sit. Stay. Heal.” We don’t heal by acting in the same unconscious and unhelpful ways we always have. Chodron encourages us to, “learn to stay with uneasiness…so that the habitual chain reaction doesn’t continue to rule our lives, and the patterns that we consider unhelpful don’t keep getting stronger.”

We are all in training, not just our pooches. By learning to sit and to stay, we open to that which is Sacred, no matter the name or conceptual framework.

We heal a bit more. And in so doing, we welcome that Light more fully into the world.

Shine on!

Loanne Marie

*No, I haven't read this book yet. A lovely excerpt was included in the Winter issue of Sacred Journey, the Journal of Fellowship in Prayer. A special "Thank you!" to dear Bonnie who, in true recycling fashion, always passes this mag on to me when she's finished with it.

I most often write what I need to learn, and it was a discussion with another dear friend (you know who you are!) that prompted me to learn more about shenpa. Thank you as well!