By Izzy
It’s Friday morning and I’m accompanying visits on my first day of work today. I was slow to sleep at 11pm last night and woke up at 6am sharp, feeling alert, my mind racing, my stomach churning. I do what I do every morning. I lie there for a while before getting up and slowly making my way down to the shrine room to sit with the Buddha. Today is a bright day and beams of golden sun shine in streaks through the window, the Buddha shines back, looking beautiful. I sit. This is my daily practise at the moment. There is nothing to do. Just sit. As my mind wonders, I am taken back to yesterday and the struggle I had with writing my dharma glimpse. I sat down to write it a few times throughout the day, every time my attention getting pulled away. I allow myself to feel into the fear. Let it wash over me. Fear of not writing a worthy dharma glimpse. Fear of starting a new job today. Fear of being late. Fear of the unknown.
Then, I am taken back to Monday and my class on the Introduction to Counselling course. The topic this week was empathy. It was something I thought I knew what it meant and now I’m not so sure. Something that came up was the idea that to be truly empathetic can be frightening. I thought about how, as I listened, I felt myself opening up to the speaker’s experience. There was a sense of letting go and for the first time I felt some fear. Where will they take me? Where will we go?
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