Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre

YOU ARE FREE

Live.
Make mistakes.
Screw everything up.
But live anyway.
Taste failure. Taste success.
See how in the end,
they taste the same.
They taste of you.
They taste of life.
They taste of the love you always sought.
So live.
Make mistakes.
Screw everything up.
Say the right thing.
Say the wrong thing.
Shake, sweat, let the heart pound.
Find your edge and never abandon it.
They will call you names.
An idiot. Afraid. Deluded. Mad.
So taste rejection. Taste disapproval.
Taste the absence of any taste.
But hold yourself close.
Breathe.
And live.
Love. Break open to love.
Make mistakes.
Screw everything up.
Fall to the ground, laughing, crying.
Love is going to hold you.
The ground is always the ground.
The ground is love.
And you are free.
Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre
Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre

BREAKING THE CYCLE OF ABANDONMENT

You can feel abandoned, yes.
You can feel lonely, far from love and life and warmth.
Others can trigger powerful feelings in you, yes.
But strip away the word, the concept, the story,
and return to the actuality of the living body.
What does it feel like, this abandonment?
How do you know you've been abandoned?
Attend to the sensations surging now in your belly, chest, throat.
Feel the fluttering, pulsating, stinging sensations.
Let them grow in intensity, or dissipate, and move.
Drench them with curious, loving attention.
Give them space; soften around them.
You've got to breathe into yourself now, friend,
for nobody is here to breathe into you,
and they cannot do that anyway.
The dream of love has died;
you are waking up to the reality of love.
Love does not come from without. It never did.
It was always within you. It was your power.
It was always your job, you see, to love yourself,
to not beg for love, or seek it externally,
or wait for it, or try to hold onto it,
but to drench yourself with it, moment by precious moment.
Do not abandon yourself when you feel abandoned,
for there is a pain worse than abandonment:
the abandonment of self, the flight from presence.
Blame doesn't work here.
Focus on 'the one who abandoned you', and you are powerless.
Break the cycle of abandonment, then.
Focus on 'the abandoned one', this precious child within.
Invite loving attention deep within the belly, heart, head.
Breathe into the ground. Feel your own aliveness.
You have not been abandoned. Life is here.
Love is here. You are here.
And from here, a new life grows.
And as you learn to not abandon yourself,
you will, in time, attract others
who are not abandoning themselves either;
others who will not abandon you.
Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre

For now you cannot be abandoned:

You refuse to abandon yourself.
Abandonment is an old word for you now.
Too dramatic for your body.
Nobody can abandon you:
they can only move
to another place,
with their pain.
Abandonment is the story of lost love,
an old story, for love cannot be lost,
only rediscovered deep within.
You are courageous enough to be present now.
You have broken the addiction of a lifetime:
You have discovered the deep joy
of being alone.
Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre

WE ALL HAVE TENDER PLACES

It's easy to say "I love you".
It's easy to talk about love,
and presence, and awareness,
and a deep acceptance of what is.
It's easy to teach,
to say things that sound true,
and good, and spiritual.
But they are just words.
There is a world before words.
When anger surges, as it will, can you stay close,
and not numb it, or lash out?
When fear bursts in the body, can you breathe into it,
and not fuse with it, or run away into stories?
When you feel hurt, rejected, unloved, abandoned,
can you make room for that feeling,
welcome it in the body,
bow to its intensity, its fire, its presence,
and not attack, or act out, or call people names?
Can you commit to not abandoning yourself
now that you need your own love the most?
It's easy to talk about love.
It's easy to teach.
Until our old wounds are opened.
Until life doesn't go our way.
What triggers you
is inviting you
to a deeper self-love.
Can you see?
There is no shame in this:
We all have tender places.
Jeff Foster – Life Without a Centre

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE WORTHY

F**k being worthy.
If you succeed, if you score an A+, if you get the promotion, if you win the race, you won't be loved
more. You have to shake off that illusion.
Love isn't something that anyone can give you. It's not something you have to beg for, earn, or
deserve.
You don't have to be worthy. You only have to be alive, and you are worthy.
Because you are inseparable from the stars, the mountains, the rustling trees in the meadow.
And you follow the breath as it rises and falls. And you make room in yourself for long-neglected
feelings of shame, fear, unworthiness, sorrow. You learn to trust the body, its rhythms, the way it
tries to protect itself, its unpredictability, its feelings of unsafety. You breathe into the sore places,
make them safe. (Safe to even feel unsafe; that is freedom.)
To love the parts that feel unlovable; that is the love you always dreamed about, the love you never
have to deserve.