“The storm may be powerful, but no storm is endless. Giving space to what you feel is always valuable because it is an essential part of healing and letting go, but if you let it take control then it will be too easy to fall into past patterns. Being with it is better than becoming it. There is a subtle space you should become more familiar with, the space where reclaiming your power is truly possible – the space where you can feel a fire burning within you without giving it more fuel.”
Yung Pueblo
“While many of us have encountered serious trauma and some people have done us incredible harm, if we want to repair and heal the imprints that burden our subconscious and skew our perception, we need to embrace the hard work of becoming our own hero. There is no way around it. When it comes to you and the inner workings of your mind, no one has the power or authority to save you the way you can save yourself. All therapists, meditation teachers, counselors, and coaches can do is guide you to reclaim your own power. A guide is not a savior. A guide is simply the person who can show you how to walk the right path so that you can finally live without having to carry so many mental burdens.”
Yung Pueblo
Heavy: An American Memoir [Book]
Book Overview: In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
“Love is by far the most important thing of all. It casts out fear. It is the fulfilling of the law. It covers a multitude of sins. Love is absolutely invincible. There is no difficulty that enough love will not cure; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem. It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake; a sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.”
Emmet Fox, via No Excuses! (Page 256)
“Inner work helps us rise above our old conditioning so that we decrease the harm we recreate in our interactions. The outer work of collective action makes compassion structural — it helps us build a world where people can feel safe and have their material needs met without directly or indirectly harming one another. Self-awareness that becomes collective action is the medicine this earth needs.”
Yung Pueblo
“You may ask yourself: which comes first—inner work or working to make the world a better place? the answer is both can happen at the same time. We are all deeply imperfect and full of conditioning that clouds the mind. Inner work is a lifelong journey, and so we should not wait until we get to the ‘end’ of our healing to help others.”
Yung Pueblo
“Healing ourselves isn’t about constantly feeling bliss, being attached to bliss is a bondage of its own. Trying to force ourselves to be happy is counterproductive, because it suppresses the sometimes tough reality of the moment, pushing it back within the depths of our being, instead of allowing it to arise and release. Healing ourselves is the personal movement we embark on to let go of all the conditioning that limits our freedom; in this journey there will undoubtedly be moments of bliss and difficulty. Real happiness and wisdom grow from the reality we experience, not from the fleeting moments of bliss that we feel.”
Yung Pueblo
