I write and think about refuge quite a bit. One of a few of the most important questions I’ve ever been asked is: where do you take refuge?

Refuge is a state of mind as much as it is a place

These days the ante has been upped and now the most important thing to discover is how find refuge in our daily life. I was speaking with a new client recently who said:” I can be present to myself when I am alone but I am completely distracted when I’m around others.”

This is THE most important question at the heart of why people seek out guidance, because most of us know little about how to be compassionate toward ourselves. Many of us know about “self improvement” and that is more about our lives as a project rather than a process.

The even deeper question is what gets in the way of loving ourselves and how do we meet those obstacles?

Four years ago a client and later dear friend of many years was dying. I made house calls for her near the end of her life. Our time was spent sitting on her bed, surrounded by her beloved animal friends.

(It was October and I can still see the delicate leaves of the Japanese Maple on her balcony aflame with the colors of autumn. My mother loved those trees and its presence evoked her death 14 years earlier.)

Our “yes or no” lives as body sensation as does much of our wisdom. We all can agonize over trying to make certain decisions at times but in the end “The Body Keeps the Score”, as Bessel van der Kolk’s book suggests.

I know for myself when body sensation gives me the answer, I’d best be listening in and act accordingly.

Forgiveness: sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it’s not. Some say there are situations that are not forgivable. When I first heard that idea, I was skeptical, surely, everything is forgivable, isn’t that what we are taught?

When I feel more deeply into my own heart and body I realize there are people I have not forgiven, even though I thought I had. And to my surprise, I realize I may never forgive them, especially when I am truthful about the depth of the hurt I have experienced.

I’ve learned that the deeper the pain, the harder it is to let it go. And that insight determines our pace of forgiveness. First we have to acknowledge to ourself the pain that we’ve endured.