Awareness Accepts What the Mind Rejects

Why It Matters

The guidance reframes chronic emotional pain from a problem to be fixed into an experience to be held, which can reduce reactivity and reliance on temporary coping techniques and improve long-term emotional regulation. That shift has implications for therapeutic and wellness practices aiming to treat persistent distress through attention training rather than symptom suppression.

Summary

In a guided meditation session, a participant named Anita describes a persistent stomach knot tied to long-standing trauma that she habitually tries to dissolve with techniques so she can continue meditating. The teacher distinguishes between the reactive mind that seeks to eliminate discomfort and the natural, effortless state of awareness that can hold sensations without judgment or agenda. He invites Anita to shift her stance from using techniques to standing as awareness, noting that awareness neither rejects nor needs to change sensations and that the narratives intensify the felt experience. The exchange illustrates a practical contrast between trying to control symptoms and adopting mindful acceptance as an enduring stance toward discomfort.

Original Description

How can one find peace with a persistent sensation – linked to years of trauma – when every technique used to dissolve it only ever offers temporary relief?

Rupert says: ‘You are making a technique out of something that is your nature. The space in this room doesn’t try to accept each one of us as we walk into it – it doesn’t need to, because it is just its nature to do so. In meditation, you are standing in your mind, trying with your mind to get rid of a sensation. I’m encouraging you to take your stand as awareness instead.’

‘Awareness has no attitude towards the sensation – no desire to get rid of it. The sensation itself is only a three or four out of ten; it is the narrative you add to it that makes it feel much deeper and darker than it really is. By giving it that narrative, you make it 30 years deep. But just the sensation itself? It’s just a bit more intense than the sensation of your hand on the mic. You can be relieved of this 30-year trauma now, completely.’

*This video is from one of Rupert’s in-person retreats at the Garrison Institute, 5–12 October 2025. For more information on upcoming retreats (many of which can be attended online via livestream) go to:

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Timestamps:

0:00 The Persistent Knot

1:52 Letting Experience Be

4:33 Awareness Is Your Nature

6:40 Awareness Is Not a Practice

8:49 Standing in Your Mind

10:35 Aligning Your Mind with Awareness

11:39 Releasing Trauma

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