We often find comfort in conflict. Intensity and contrast are all around us, all the time, especially with everything happening around the world. For many of us, conflict has become our default setting. And when it goes on too long, we feel more comfortable in the chaos of an argument or a dramatic piece of news than in stillness.

Pushing limits until they break

Often we pride ourselves on how much we can handle. Our backs are strong, people can lean on us. The more problems to solve and the more crises to manage, the better. We take it on not necessarily because we want to, but mostly out of habit and because we can. We hold on to the limited belief of: “I should because I can.” And when chaos outside settles, we realize we have forgotten how to thrive without it. Our subconscious seeks the familiarity of chaos.

I know this about me. I can push my limits quite far until I can't anymore. I can ignore my desire for stillness and creative expression for a long while,...

A few years ago, I was having coffee with a dear friend, and he asked me this question: “What are you most afraid of these days, Anne?” I went into myself to feel this question, and I stared at him for a moment. I noticed a subtle ache in my chest. I kept my attention there, and the answer sprung forward, “I am afraid of what my anger can do. I am afraid I will lose the people I love if I let myself be angry.” 

After he left, I reflected on my answer, which had surprised me.

A few months prior, as the #metoo movement was catching up to spiritual figures, I began to feel anger at the events that were unfolding in the news. In France, a world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher had to step down from his leadership position after allegations of sexual and abuse of power. I had been a guest at his temple just a few months before. Taking in his teachings on a silent retreat I had not known what was happening behind the scenes. Back home in Nova Scotia,...

A few days ago, I had coffee with a friend, the best kind of friend, the kind that asks you huge questions like “What are you most afraid of these days Anne?” I went into myself to feel this question, and I stared at him for a little while. Then, from this ache in my chest, I said: “I am afraid of what my anger can do.” His question came toward the end of our time together, so after he left, I sat there by myself in a hot mess of emotions (Thanks a lot Nick ; ) but really, thank you ) and this is what I wrote...

I remember rage, in Grade 10. I was in Quebec city with my basketball team playing a tournament game against an all-girl private school team, and they were vicious. When the refs weren’t looking, they’d trip us on purpose and throw elbows in the rib cage any chance they had. None of the coaches were seeing what was happening, and I remember just steaming inside. I’d never experienced anything like that. Then, in the last...

I am raw, swirling inside, ungrounded. As I watched my 10-year-old daughter holding back tears as she walks out of the car and heading into school this morning, my insides are crumbling. She feels trapped, unable to find an exit from the overwhelming fear that has taken over her normally bright and fierce self these past few weeks. She can’t find her way through this heaviness, she feels not in control of herself, and it splits my heart open.

Is it pre-puberty, a new teacher and new classmates, the car accident she was in last winter, a sudden and new awareness of mortality, her older brother going through his own changes, me travelling, the recent encounter with a verbally violent neighbour, or is it a combination of all these things coming together in a perfect storm… whatever it is, it is bringing her to the edge of her own awareness of safety in her body, and of her sense of power in this world.

In this intensity, I feel my own shakiness, which dissimulates an anger...

Excitement is a fire emotion, a take action emotion. So is anxiety. At the emotional level, they are both arousal feelings. At the spiritual level, they are both the element of fire. Except that with anxiety, instead of feeling inspired, we are stopped dead in our tracks, we back away, our fire remains unfulfilled.

One week before I was to lead my very first retreat, 10 years ago, I was really nervous. And I was frustrated with myself because up to that point I had been really excited about finally making this dream of mine a reality. But it didn’t feel so good now, I even thought of canceling the program. 

At the time I was working closely with Laura Kealoha, a Kahuna from Kauai, so I called her for some advice. She said: “Have you considered that this feeling you are having might actually be excitement, but it just feels different? Focus your anxiousness into a concrete action toward your goal, just as you would with your enthusiasm. Use that nervous feeling and...