LRPPs: “Heart Medicine is a beautiful invitation to discover and heal the persistent patterns that create suffering in our lives. Radhule reminds us that when we touch what is painful with awareness, the armoring around our heart melts and frees us to reconnect with our full aliveness, wisdom, and love.” ~ Tara Brach

Traumas seem to be part of life and, almost inevitably, they leave a deep imprint with adverse behavioral consequences. If one is fortunate, this can become a “grist for the mill” … leading to profound healing … and, at times, even unexpected transformation.

The imprint tends to remain buried and surfaces unexpectedly in everyday dynamics (at times explosively) causing further suffering and leaving (more often than not) the experiencer perplexed … and exhausted (even ashamed of his/her behavior) because of the recurrent and pattern like nature of the dynamic. Here’s Joanna Macy on this topic:

“… There are those edgy personal hang-ups and overreactions that occasionally throw me for a loss and even sabotage a situation. They escape my comprehension and control, leaving me no option but to endure, with my self-respect in tatters …”

Turns out a student of Buddhism and Western Psychology, Radhule Weininger – made it her life work, over four decades, to methodically examine these patterns … and, consequently offer a way to face them, understand them, and ultimately resolve them.

Radhule uses the term “Long Standing Recurrent Patterns or LRPPs,” to describe these “landmines” lodged deep in the psyche that are the present-tense manifestation of old wounds in the form of destructive behaviors (anger, judgement, intense dislike, etc.), that further “compound and reinforce the underlying problem” …

Radhule posits that LRPPs have “within them the potential to help us find meaning and, amazingly, to discover the very purpose of our lives” … and invites us to recognize that our LRPPs are not obstacles  “… but rather {an} inspiration, … a portal to a wholeness that is primordially there …”

Bringing both Buddhism and Psychology to bear on this problem “… Through the practice of what she calls “deep mindfulness” and “deep compassion,” Radhule shares the teaching that “awareness is the primary ingredient, the oxygen that allows us to transform our life.” …”

So, today we offer a sampling of Radhule’s work through chapter excerpts from her recent book Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom – at Last : an overview of LRPPs and their potential for healing (and more) from the Introduction … PLUS a sampling of the actual healing method (awareness practice) from the sub-chapter What is Awareness? (part of chapter 4: The Medicine of Awareness).

This post is part of our ongoing Shambhala Publications series that offers substantive previews of selections from Shambhala Publications new and classic titles …

All italicized text in this post (except Bryant McGill’s quote) is adapted from Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last by Radhule Weininger © 2021 by Radhule Weininger. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. Shambhala Publications has also generously offered a free downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents (link is at the bottom of the post).

You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.

LRPPs: Introduction

[…]

Since my wake-up call fifteen years ago, when I turned with urgency to search for relief from my LRPPs, I have learned that when I bring awareness, understanding, and choice to such recurring, painful challenges, these obstacles can become opportunities. My LRPPs have been a doorway to a new kind of wisdom, to an opening of the heart. With a clearer mind and a softer heart, I am now wiser and more perceptive, ready to take on the tasks of life that await me. By looking at our own old wounds—by identifying them, taking them on, and addressing them—we can all find healing and, at the same time, learn about the emotional, psychological, and spiritual process of healing itself. Even though long-standing, recurrent, painful patterns can be excruciating to bear, they have within them the potential to help us find meaning and, amazingly, to discover the very purpose of our lives.

[…]

I want to pass on what I have learned so we can all become less burdened and readier to see our wounds as inspiration for serving our world. Particularly today, when every engaged and helpful hand is needed to turn around the fate of our world, our patterns of suffering can inhibit us from contributing our full range of capabilities. With climate change, racial and economic inequality, political polarization, and a grave public health crisis all intertwined, we are asked to be not only resilient but also creative on behalf of our world’s and one another’s well-being.

Drawing on over forty years as a student of Buddhism and Western psychology, I’ve experimented to discover which practices and approaches are particularly helpful in loosening the grip of LRPPs. In particular, I’ve chosen practices that allowed me—and will help others—to transform painful constellations into opportunities to find insight and purpose. Since I began studying mindfulness in a Sri Lankan monastery in 1980, my practice has expanded and transformed. In addition to a mindfulness that looks at the moment-by-moment aspects of what is happening, I will introduce you to a mindfulness that is rooted in the limitless, knowing field of effortless awareness.

I call this practice Deep Mindfulness. It is especially helpful in freeing us from the tenacious, contracted quality of these primal entanglements. All the practices in this book helped me to find more freedom in my life and allowed me to transform my LRPPs. I present them here in readily accessible and relevant ways that provide the necessary tools to transform your LRPPs into doorways to freedom.

[…]

4. The Medicine of Awareness … for LRPPs

“… the field awareness refers to the experience of being embedded in a vast, unlimited field—a background field of awareness—in which everything is interconnected. This field of awareness, which we can experience in deep meditation, has the qualities of luminosity, stillness, and a sense of knowing …”

[…]

Awareness practice is fundamental to working with all forms of LRPPs. Awareness is also the foundation of the path of healing set out by the Buddha as well as experts in psychology. When we face our LRPPs, we can get discouraged or feel overwhelmed by how entrenched they are. In order to find freedom from these deep-rooted configurations, it is essential to become aware of when those patterns flare up and to track how we then feel in those moments. Strengthening our ability to be aware is a radical step. With awareness we can change and transform. Awareness is like a light that helps us find our way through the darkness so that we can identify when we are in the throes of a LRPP. With awareness, we have the choice to learn and grow and to create a better life for ourselves. Without awareness, we remain stagnant and stuck.

What Is Awareness?

Awareness is the ability to directly know, feel, and be conscious of our experience as living beings. Awareness allows us to focus and direct our attention and notice our inner and outer experiences. The quality of our awareness influences the way we relate to life. How- ever, awareness can be colored by our thoughts and feelings. Only with gradually increasing levels of awareness can we make choices that allow us to slowly disentangle ourselves from the LRPPs that haunt us.

We can discern awareness both as a verb—awaring or being aware—and as a noun—the field of awareness that infuses everything.

We can imagine it as a sphere out of which we emerge and into which we fall back and can rest. In a paradoxical way, these two descriptions of awareness, as verb and noun, can be seen as two aspects of the same phenomenon. In a nondual way, awareness as something we do and awareness as a vast field can be imagined as a wave and as the ocean, both sharing their common nature: wa- ter. And to increase the paradoxical nature of awareness: this field of awareness is fully alive, a field in which every pixel is constantly changing and interdependently co-arising.

The most known aspect of awaring or being aware is our ability to focus our attention. Then there is self-awareness, to be aware of our feelings, motives, and desires and our personal experience of that. Meta-awareness is about seeing ourselves with a bird’s-eye view from above or beyond, allowing us to be conscious of people and events beyond ourselves and how they relate to one another. Metacognitive awareness describes our ability to be conscious of and assess our own awareness, attentiveness, or focus, which supports our learning and meditative practice. Finally, the field awareness refers to the experience of being embedded in a vast, unlimited field—a background field of awareness—in which everything is interconnected. This field of awareness, which we can experience in deep meditation, has the qualities of luminosity, stillness, and a sense of knowing.

All aspects of awareness allow us to make clear choices that focus our lives. This helps us to gain freedom from LRPPs.

[…]

~ Radhule Weininger

The next post in this Shambhala Publications series will introduce Gurdjieff’s teachings via his book In Search of Being: The Fourth Way to Consciousness… so stay tuned …

 

All italicized text above is adapted from Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom—at Last by Radhule Weininger © 2021 by Radhule Weininger.. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. And, click here for the free, downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents.

You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.

 

 

Let us not add any more LRPPs to the people impacted by the ongoing fires in New Mexico … by helping in whatever way we can … and to that end here are some options:

1) New Mexico Wildfire Relief & Resources.

2) Ways to aid those impacted by wildfires on Northern New Mexico.

3) How to help evacuees and fire victims in northern New Mexico.

4) Red Cross Helping New Mexico Wildfire Evacuees.

— — — —

We are all facing financial challenges but IF your situation allows you to donate and help then please do so …

THANK YOU!

May you realize the underlying gifts of your LRPPs … and may you embrace these gifts … towards a life of peace and freedom.

 

Bryant H McGill’s quote from his facebook post.
Vimeo video on LRPP provided by Shambhala Publications for our use.

Images (edited & Logo added): Header: Annapurna mountains by saiko3p,1 & Featured) Hummingbird birds with pink flower by OndrejProsicky, 2) Cover page of Heart Medicine book, 3 & 7) Shambhala Publications logo, 4) Amazing sunrise. Lonely boat in calm lake by Vitalii_Mamchuk, 5) Picturesque view of beautiful sea scenery by Imaginechina-Tuchong, 6) Majestic sky with pink cloud. Fantastic sunrise illuminates the mountain, thick fog and horizon. Snowy winter morning. Wallpaper background. Location place Carpathian, Ukraine, Europe by Vitalii_Mamchuk. All for use only on our website/social channels (these images are not permitted to be shared separate from this post). 2, 3, & 7) generously provided by Shambhala Publications with permission to be used on our website and other digital assets.