Hi jetster,

I really appreciate your comments, I've certainly benefitted from exploring them. In my opinion, it seems to be a case of finding the right balance between observing, surrendering and using the intellect and that will vary depending on the situation, our unique ways of processing and where we are on our journey. A certain amount of analysis must be helpful, otherwise we'd never catch our patterns and distortions and we would keep going around in circles. Yet too much examination and we get lost in the mind or drama of the situation. Fascinating... and certainly something worth exploring. It sounds like you're doing great ;)

An example happened with me last night. I was sleeping in my car for the first time and during the night began to feel fearful. I was able to catch the fearful thoughts as they arose and notice how I was feeling and reacting, soften into it and then contemplate what is the worst that could happen. It feels that I was observing, surrendering into the feeling and using the intellect to recognise how unfounded my fears were. In this situation i didn't feel the need to understand where the fears came from, just to work with them. It's not always straightforward, a continual learning :)

Forgive any typos as sending from my phone.

Wish you fruitful exploring, love fiona