- Into the Land of Monsters
- Land of Monsters
You've seen the three layers, and that the way through is noticing — the monsters shifting from facts to beliefs written on your glasses. Here's another door into the same territory: speak them aloud to someone listening with commitment, and what felt like solid fact loosens its grip in the very saying of it. Let's continue.
- Into the Land of Monsters: Personal Journey Workbook
Don't leave this as a map. Take out a pen and walk all three layers — who you want to be seen as, who you're afraid you are, and what you really are. Be brave; you can always destroy the paper later.
- How self-worth gets all screwed up
Watch the outer shell being built in real time — on a boat to Yelapa, a mind calculating its worth through a stranger's eyes. Let's go deeper into why we construct it, and what it's so afraid the monsters will show.
- Facing Hunger Monster: For Anyone Struggling with Food, Diets, Body Shame, and Weight
Now meet a monster face to face. After almost four decades of sharing a body with Hunger Monster, I went looking for it on purpose, in an Italian restaurant in Boulder — and on the way met a tiny frightened child, too scared to ask for more bread. Come sit at the table with me.
- So What, Now What
When the voices of self-blame are this loud, here's something you can do right away. Say it out loud — so what — and keep saying it until you let that energy in and see the complete emptiness of blaming yourself. What is there really to blame yourself for?
- From Shame to Joy: Leave your Inner Critic Behind
So What shows you the emptiness of blaming yourself, right now. Here's what becomes possible when the root itself is met — decades of shame dissolved, not by understanding basic goodness but by knowing it in the body. Let's go and dance in the shower.
- Feeling Bad About Yourself? Read this out loud
Now let it land in you, not just in my story. Read this one out loud, slowly, and feel — not think about — the goodness no thought can touch. You are as needed as the trees.
So What, Now What
A two-part practice for releasing self-blame: first "So What" — saying it aloud until the energy of self-criticism empties out and reveals there was nothing to blame yourself for — and only later "Now What," a fresh orientation. The teaching warns against the "false welcome" of rushing through So What just to reach Now What.
So What. This is a powerful practice that can really change our experience. If you are caught up in the whirlwind of thoughts of self-blame, where you’re constantly thinking about what you should be doing, or that what you’re doing is wrong. Maybe you’re doing one thing but thinking really you should be doing a different thing. Then this one is for you. So What. Take as long as you need to really open into it. Whatever it is that you’re thinking, maybe you didn’t do your work task because you were really tired today. Or you changed your mind about something and now you’re second guessing yourself and saying that you made the wrong decision. So What. Really take it in. Say it out loud. Keep saying it out loud until you let that energy in. The complete emptiness of your blaming of yourself. What is there really to blame yourself for? Absolutely nothing when you look at it. So What, so what, so what. Then, afterwards, later, Now What. Dont shortchange So What. They are totally different parts. Dont do the so what just to get to the now what. That's what we call a "false welcome", where you welcome in whatever unpleasant things you find in the So What just in order to shoo them out the back door in order to get to the now what part. Each part is complete in itself.
From Shame to Joy: Leave your Inner Critic BehindSo What shows you the emptiness of blaming yourself, right now. Here's what becomes possible when the root itself is met — decades of shame dissolved, not by understanding basic goodness but by knowing it in the body. Let's go and dance in the shower.