EightySevenMinutes.com

Preface
Our negative certainty takes many forms:
Theres a lot under the surface of

life, everyone knows that. A lot of
malice and dread and guilt, and so
much loneliness, where you
wouldnt expect to find it, either.
Marilynne Robinson
Many of us know precisely what it is to be

haunted by dread and loneliness, to inhabit
lives of periodic or continual desperation.
Some days can be better than others. Hope
happens. But each day can carry with it the
hidden burden of negative certainty. We live
in the presence of absence: something is
almost always missing or about to go missing;
wrong or about to go wrong.
Unyielding fear of failure or never being enough
Vigilance about others being too much
Worry about being left alone
The guarantee of never belonging
Guilt about the past
Dread of the future
The agony of a painful present
www.pinterest.com
We exist on some primitive edge of life,

terrified of falling forever.
1
What you're looking at here is a note-in-abottle; the human condition squeezed inside a
brief summary of personal struggle and hidden
possibility.
My education gave me everything I

needed except how to make it
through an ordinary day.
The experience requires eighty-seven minutes

of your time. [Suggestion: You may choose an
immersive binge-read of the full site, but it's
likely your reading will best be approached
chapter by chapter, or in brief increments, over
several days or weeks. Word on the street is
that the content is "just a tad bit heavy"
and many feel a need to often take breaks. For
some it seems too dark and their choice is to
quit reading. This makes sense. Initially, the
focus is both intense and painful. But the
focus doesn't end there. For any who continue
reading, please know that the closing chapters
invite both trust and a sense of peace. Really.]
Sren Kierkegaard
www.eightysevenminutes.com - All quotes are anonymous, written statements from seminar

and classroom participants from the past thirty years.
This site was obviously created for those who

struggle internally. The shift can be from: "I
think I'm alone in this pain," to "Others feel
this way," to "My suffering makes sense and I
have new options I didn't quite recognize
before."
You'll be asked to consider conclusions about
why we suffer that are based on my forty years
of clinical experience as a psychotherapist,
three decades of research regarding child
development, and my own personal struggle.
Also included in my understanding are
insights gleaned during four decades of
meditation practice. My commitment is to be
as direct and honest as I can be about why I
believe so many of us suffer.
www.eightysevenminutes.com
As stated above, you may want to turn back

now. You will be prompted to recall and
explore pain, and the well-traveled patterns
commonly used to stay away from that pain.
You do not know what wars are

going on down there, where the
spirit meets the bone.
So. Psychotherapy, infant and early childhood

research, being messed up, and (nondogmatic) spiritual practice ... If something in
this odd mix appeals to you, then the hard
work of the next eighty-seven minutes may
well be worth the risk.
Lucinda Williams
Some have said they want to pay for this

experience. This is not necessary. If, however,
payment seems important, please put aside
$10 and give it to an unsuspecting streetdependent teen or adult in the coming month.
Transaction complete.
Welcome.
Kent Hoffman
eightysevenminutes.com
kenthoffman1422@comcast.net
Presence/Absence
In an interview where he described our

addiction to cell phones and texting, Comedian
Louis C.K. talked about our common goal to
stay hyper-busy, always trying to pseudoconnect in order to stay away from what he
describes as our common malady: an
experience he aptly describes as the "forever
empty."
... underneath everything in your

life theres that thing, that empty,
forever empty. That knowledge that
its all for nothing and youre
alone. Its down there.
Louis C.K.
I was born in 1947, the year poet W.H. Auden

coined the phrase, "Age of Anxiety." Louis
C.K. and Auden both describe precisely how
the first thirty-five years of my life
felt: forever empty, forever anxious. Strong
emphasis on "forever."
[Click image to watch]
To say that I worried as a child would be an

understatement. I've dealt with that same
worry as an adult, although the subject matter
has changed a thousand times. Mark Twain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c
said it best: "I've lived through some terrible

things in my life, some of which actually
happened."
Anxiety disorders work that way.
My mother divorced when I was an infant and
quickly chose a second husband who was
neither faithful to her nor safe for me. She was
lost and confused. He was lost and dangerous.
Any biological propensity I may have had for
anxiety was multiplied by a growing sense of
vigilance concerning family dysfunction.
www.familymattersblogspot.com
After years of this gnawing fear and

emptiness, I did what many do. I chose to
enter psychotherapy in my early twenties with
the hope of bringing an end to the endlessness
of it all. Not long after, in an attempt to seal
the deal, I entered graduate school to become a
psychotherapist myself. (Like many, I lived
Only years later did it begin to dawn on me

why I was always haunted by a sense of dread,
and always felt alone. Into my teen years, my
questions were always the same: "Why is
everything always so dark and frightening?
How do I get through this day?"
under the cultural delusion that knowledge

would finally solve my pain.)
private despair matched by theirs. Though our

life circumstances were radically different, as I
came to know the stories of these deeply
wounded and tender souls, I found myself
having one thing in common with their lives,
"the meaninglessness of it all." It's as if we
were reading the same message from the same
book. "So this is life on planet earth: Day to
day suffering without hope of change; always
concluding at the same endpoint; alone in
pain, alone in pain, once again alone in pain."
Along the way, some things changed.

I released anger. I processed fear. I understood
more of what had transpired for me as a child.
I found some relief.
And along the way, nothing changed.
There remained an underlying experience of
negative certainty. There continued to be,
throughout each day, intense incredulity about
the suffering that seemed to consume so many
of us.
Oddly, I felt a change beginning that would

only make sense years in the future. I began to
see that within a sense of shared absence we
can, sometimes, experience shared presence.
Eventually, I found myself working as a

clinician with incarcerated women who had
been labeled "mentally ill" (most of whom
were serving life sentences for
murder). Unexpectedly, I began to find my
7
monk David Steindl-Rast at a hermitage on the

coast of Maine. I counseled terminally ill
cancer patients. I lived and worked for almost
five years at the Catholic Worker in Los
Angeles, finding hidden radiance in the
vulnerability, depth, and dignity of the
homeless women, men, and children I came to
know. In the face of so much suffering, light
seemed possible. The opening continued.
I began working at a small college and, based

on the suggestion of longtime mentor Allan
Hunter, started a regular meditation practice.
"Kent, there is always more going on than
meets the eye. Sit with your hands open and
learn to wait. Breathe. Life will open."
Something actually did shift. For several
years it was as though my life did open, just a
bit. Eventually I quit my job at the college and
spent half a year studying with Benedictine
Lee Jeffries
But my personal life intervened. As a central

relationship in my life continued to fall apart,
my life once again closed down. Eventual
attempts at intimacy didn't go well. I
increasingly felt like a failure at love.
experience of enlightenment that often

emerges in a sudden burst of insight. Hoping
against hope, I returned to a practice of regular
meditation with the possibility of changing my
life (and stopping the pain).
Over the next few years I returned to "forever

empty." What I had hoped was behind me was,
with too much familiarity, all around. During
this time I also began experiencing chronic
pain on the right side of my head. It
started one night and regardless of what I did,
it wouldn't go away.
Not surprisingly, within a few months my new

practice simply mirrored my experience of life
itself. Sitting alone in silence, I was merely
reconfirming my well-worn experience of
absence rather than revealing a shift in
consciousness. I practiced off and on, but
nothing changed.
I felt increasingly stuck inside myself. I

couldn't find a way out.
Knowing of my interest in meditation, a friend
introduced me to Robert Aitken, a kind and
wise Zen roshi. His approach to Zen was in the
tradition that welcomes kensho, an
9
1. HOLDING
Aware that prominent psychologists and
university laboratories had compelling
evidence that the foundations for much adult
psychological distress can be found within our
earliest experiences in life, I began an in-depth
study of developmental psychology and infant
research. While studying psychoanalysis at the
Masterson Institute, I found myself drawn to
the work of Donald W. Winnicott, a British
psychoanalyst from the middle of the 20th
Century. Through his work as a pediatrician
as well as child and adult analyst, Winnicott
named the central emotional requirement for
emotional health throughout life.
How could anything change when

emptiness, nothingness, and pain were so
obviously the underlying truth of everything?
I kept getting up each morning, but with little
hope for my future.
Over the next decade, two gifts gradually and
inexplicably emerged in my life, surprisingly
cross-joined. (Looking back, I must have
asked for them. In asking, I had no clue what I
actually needed.)
In coining the phrase, holding environment,

Winnicott gave voice to every infant's core
need: personal access to a primary
relationship (one or several) that recognizes
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the child's absolute dependence and offers

sensitive and committed caregiving. Winnicott
was unequivocal in his belief that at the heart
of this first relationship is the fact that each
child requires consistent, predictable, and
soothing presence, especially during times of
distress. A few years into this new
understanding of a holding environment, I
studied briefly with infant researcher Daniel
Stern. His term for this same core emotional
requirement: being-with. To be-with is to
experience, what Stern and his colleagues
call a moment of meeting.
Based upon the theory and research of her

mentors, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth,
Jude guided and supported our work with
high-risk parents and young children. The
outcome of that collaboration, known as
the Circle of Security, and is now being
utilized with parents and children around the
globe.
Winnicott, Bowlby, Ainsworth, Stern, and
Cassidy have brought clarity regarding the
basic emotional needs at the heart of every
person on our planet. They have also made
clear the cost to each of us when these needs
aren't adequately met.
Moments of meeting. Moments of trust.

Then a new opportunity was offered. Along
with my colleagues Bert Powell and Glen
Cooper, I was invited to become an attachment
researcher under the guidance of Jude
Cassidy from the University of Maryland.
11

You see two infants: one has been
held (in my extended sense of the
word) well enough ... and the other
has not had the experience of being
held well and growth has had to be
distorted and delayed, and some
degree of primitive agony has to be
carried on into life and living ... The
infant who has not had [this holding
environment] has either needed to
develop premature ego functioning
[a self-sufficient, its all up to me
strategy], or there has developed a
muddle.
Gretchen Minx
Donald Winnicott, M.D.
12
classicsstock/corbis
within the nature of life, began to emerge into

view. The experience of holding is somewhere
on a continuum for each of us. Yet, in
subjective perception we either have access to
a holding environment or we do not. To the
degree that we have access to a holding
environment, we feel safe and secure. To the
degree that we do not have access to this
holding, we increasingly experience life as
difficult unto impossible.
As I deepened in my study (and corresponding

psychotherapy) I realized that I did not have a
history that included adequate holding.
Attempts had been made by my parents, but
these were two people with little clue how to
offer soothing presence. These were two
people still lost in misguided attempts to find
their own holding. From an early age I
had "developed [in] a muddle."
Every life is worthy of a novel.

Erving Polster, Ph.D.
For the first time, the internal chaos of my life

(Winnicott called it primitive agony) began to
make some sense. For the first time an
underlying structure, a deeper coherence
13
2. BEING-WITH
By this time, I had been dealing with the

chronic pain in my head for more than a
decade, and we discussed this often. Joko was
unflinching in her suggestion that I allow the
pain to be exactly as it was, with no strategies
to get rid of it. She kept suggesting that I
"simply hold" the pain while simultaneously
experiencing it.
While delving into developmental psychology

and research, I changed meditation teachers,
briefly studying with Thich Nhat Hanh. His
focus on simple breathing (" ... peace is every
breath") and kindness within a daily practice
were remarkably beneficial. Having such
limited access to someone living in France was
less helpful. It is with Thich Nhat Hanh that I
took sacred vows.
Then, unexpectedly, I was offered an

opportunity to study with Joko Beck, a nononsense Zen roshi in her late sixties, teaching
in San Diego. She graciously invited those of
us who lived at a distance to call weekly and
discuss our meditation practice in direct
relationship to the struggles happening in our
everyday lives. This was the consistent
guidance I recognized as necessary.
You have another choice Kent. You can quit

fighting this pain and simply hold it. You dont
need to get some place new. This moment is
merely another chance to be-with what is,
exactly as it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Joko Beck
(Suffice it to say that Joko had never heard of
either Donald Winnicott or Daniel Stern. And,
14
while this terminology is now more common

in Zen meditation circles, it was virtually
unheard of 30 years ago.)
Your great mistake is to act the

drama as if you were alone.
David Whyte
I practiced holding and being-with my pain for

several years. The pressure to be rid of it or to
change it did shift. Over time, on many days,
the intensity level gradually moved from an 8
or 9 to a more manageable 3 or 4 on a pain
scale of 1-10. The pain did not disappear, but
something was different. The world I was
trying to make sense of was different.
PRESENCE
Through the decades, I have patched together
my learning from developmental research and
my daily mediation practice, focusing my
professional life on two clinical populations:
I was now married and the father of a young

child. Intimacy began to make sense. Nothing
else mattered half as much.
1. Homeless/street dependent teen parents

and adults
2. Those of us who appear to be "normal."
(People who seem to be relatively content and
successful, but who, once we look beneath the
surface, often reveal feelings of dread and
loneliness.)
Life was beginning to shift.
15
While life circumstances are profoundly

different for each of these groups (this cannot
be overstated), I have continued to find that we
all carry a remarkably similar intensity when it
comes to internal struggle. I know very few
people, once you listen deep into their lives,
who do not experience a stunning level of
hidden, personal pain - often on a daily basis.
Presence and its shadow opposite, absence, are

always center stage.
To the degree that we know presence (along a
vast continuum), we are at home in our lives.
To the degree that absence defines our
experience (along a vast continuum), we
suffer.
The homeless street kid, the diligent university
student, and the celebrated professional all live
within the same condition: trust is the lived
experience of presence and suffering is the
lived experience of absence.
The human condition remains the human

condition, regardless of who we are.
No one escapes suffering.
I've come to the following understanding of
our shared human predicament:
1. Every heart will inevitably be wounded by
an absence it cannot comprehend.
2. No heart can forget the presence it was
born to know.
Does not everything depend upon

our interpretation of the silence
around us?
Lawrence Durrell
16
www.Pinterest.com
We can be in pain with presence and do well (enough).
www.tricycle.com
Pain without presence is hell.
www.TheUnlost.com
What is, is.

What is, without holding, remains stuck.
What is, with holding, rests and transforms.
17
ABSENCE
of absence accumulate.
Shit happens. We all know that. But when it
keeps happening and we have no way to
comprehend or even acknowledge it, we build
a life that in a wide variety of ways is designed
to pretend the shit isn't even here.
This, of course, is where things start to get

dicey.
Presence = being-with
Absence = being-without
Holding environment is to primitive agony as
presence is to absence.
Because many of us are wounded at precisely
the point of experiencing being-without where
being-with might have been, ours is an
experience of daily, hourly, moment to
moment struggle. This ongoing struggle is
what comes from not being able to trust in
simple presence.
www.PostSecret.com
When Louis C.K. says ... underneath

everything in your life there's that thing, that
empty, forever empty. The knowledge that ...
Absence is the unshared aloneness of beingwithout. It is far more common than we would
imagine. Unfortunately, repeated experiences
18
you're alone," he is speaking for so many of

us. His words speak directly to that everpresent absence, the one big pile of shit that
just never seems to go away.
Where can the crying heart gaze?

Naomi Shihab Nye
www.PostSecret.com
Anonymous writing from the journal of a foster child
Absence happens. For all of us. For some it

can be severe in ways that are obvious. For
others, it can be equally severe in ways that
most others would never notice.
In words recently spoken by a client: "It's all

so fucking lonely and it's all so fucking
terrifying."
19
I do not exaggerate when I say that the internal

hell (self-loathing, harsh expectations,
certainty about being alone) of many students I
have worked with at the university level is
often equal to, if not more extreme, than the
agony of the homeless teens I've come to know
through the years.
I am not making this up.
In the face of so much that feels impossible

and overwhelming, current neuroscience is
now able to offer a clue to both understanding
and working with our internal uncertainty.
20
Procedural Memory
& The Voice
building memory based on patterns of microinteractions with their caregivers. Every

moment of experience informs every child's
expanding procedural memory:
Affective neuroscience is now helping us find

a hidden source of our internal struggles.
We call it procedural memory.

It might be called the neuroscience of learned
presence and learned absence.
Some are fortunate to experience an

abundance of presence in their formative
years. But, for many, presence didn't always
show up in the way it was most needed. This
was the absence we likely still can't
comprehend.
Here's a quick summary of procedural

memory. Procedural memory is memory
outside of words, because it began before we
had words. All infants and young children are
I like it when you smile so comfortably. It

feels good to settle more fully into your
arms.
When you frown so intensely, I feel
uneasy and look away. Why don't you
notice my discomfort and return to being
gentle?
When I cry, you pull back. Your body
tightens. Am I too much for you?
I get so frightened when you're angry like
that. I'm shutting down. Why don't you
stop?
What's so important about this is the

understanding that so much of our learning
about "the nature of relationship" is well
21
established through countless interactions

(hundreds per hour), before we ever have
access to language.
Of course, procedural memory continues to be

formed as we get older. Early patterns merely
become more firmly established:
I try not to care about you. I care too

much. Why are you so distracted?
Busy, busy, busy. Would someone please
just sit down at this kitchen table and tell
me my life will be OK?
As infants and children monitor minute cues

from those upon whom they most depend
(facial gestures, tone of voice, posture, rhythm
of bodily movements, intensity of gestures,
dilation of pupils, level of comfort versus
discomfort, etc.), they are paying exquisite,
moment-to-moment attention to the procedures
of how to be and how not to be in
relationship. ("When I do this, she smiles.
When I do this, she pulls back.") And
so, before we have language and after, each of
us come to knowmoments-as-patterns-ofpresence and moments-as-patterns-ofabsence in our primary relationships. The
seemingly small is so much bigger than we
I come home with something less than an

"A" and there it is, that critical tone in
your voice.
I begin to feel sad and you tell me it's not
that bad. Why do I have to look on the
bright side of everything?
I tell you something even vaguely
personal and suddenly you're way too
interested. I need you to back off. You
never do.
When I disagree with you I feel guilty. It
always hurts your feelings for me to want
my own life.
22
typically imagine.
Side bar: At this point a lot of readers start

deciding it's time to, well, stop being readers.
"What hope is there if parents with the best of
intentions make tiny 'mistakes' that end up
causing ongoing loneliness in their children?
Either this isn't accurate or it's right, but too
despairing." Such a response is fully
understandable. But there is another way to
look at early procedural struggles that persist
into adulthood.
These memories of presence and absence

make up the hidden, unrecognized narrative of
our worldview. For some of us this is good
news. For others, not so much. Because, when
repeated negative micro-interactions lead us to
a sense that those we most need are easily
distracted or demanding or intrusive or afraid
of who we actually are, we become stuck with
an ongoing experience of absence.
Here is the problem. For those of us who grew
up with unresolved experiences of absence,
our ongoing belief system becomes the
certainty that absence is the definition
of reality itself. When we are vulnerable or in
need (as we were as children), we expect
absence. We accept this learned pattern as
simply the way things are. We ask ourselves,
why would anyone think life could be different?
1. We can, quite suddenly, realize how our

persistent, internal pain actually makes
sense (rather than being inexplicable and
always confusing).
2. We can realize that our parents (and their
parents and their parents) had no clue
they were passing on a
difficult, unconscious legacy. The issue of
blame immediately disappears. No parent
23
intentionally wakes up in the morning and

says, "Today is a good day to give
absence to my child." Parents simply
have no clue these procedural patterns of
absence were handed on to them and no
clue they are now handing them on to the
next generation. (By the way, offering
parents systematic access to these
unconscious miscues is precisely the
cutting edge work now going on the field
of early intervention. The results are
remarkably positive for all concerned.)
3. Thus, the issue is neither blame or
despair. The issue is coherence and
clarity. "Of course! This makes sense. I
had these moments (lots of them) when
my dad just pulled away whenever I cried
(or got angry or was asking for support).
I always thought it was something about
me. Now I see that he never
knew presence in those moments either.

He, too, learned that pattern from a
parent who also wasn't offered presence
in those moments. This has to go back
countless generations."
4. Once recognized, we begin to have choice
that was not available before. We see
patterns of absence and recognize them
as core beliefs learned early rather than
a definition of ultimate reality. In
attachment research, a new found
capacity to reflect on our (procedural)
history highly correlates with an increase
in security for adults.
5. It's never too late. Our identity is deeper
than our history. New options abound
once we begin to recognize
them. Discovering how this is true is
precisely why this site was created.
24

We do not see the world as it is, we
see the world as we are.
The Talmud
Donald Winnicott once said that we aren't
afraid of what will happen to us in the future,
we're afraid of what has already happened to
us that we don't want to remember or can't yet
make sense of.
Our history of absence tends to define our

current experience of presence. For many of
us, this begins to explain why we find it so
difficult to trust - others, ourselves, "God," life
itself.
What is going on that would keep so many of

us incredibly, agonizingly stuck in negative
certainty about ourselves, others, and our
future? Why would we hold tightly to our
experience of absence, rather than just walking
away from it?
Our unresolved past, just outside of

consciousness, continually shows up,
masquerading as the present.
25
A young boy lies in a hospital bed. He is

frightened and in pain. Burns cover 40
percent of his small body. Someone has
doused him with alcohol and then,
unimaginably, has set him on fire.
He cries for his mother.
His mother has set him on fire.
HBO
It doesnt seem to matter what kind of

mother a child has lost, or how perilous it
may be to dwell in her presence.
Developmentally speaking, we can now

recognize a direct link between the story of the
young boy clinging to the arms of a mother
who has set him on fire and the predictable
(and all too common) message revealed by the
self-loathing of Hannah (from the HBO
series, Girls).
It doesnt matter whether she hurts or

hugs. Separation from mother is worse
than being in her arms when the bombs
are exploding.
Let's start with current developmental research

to explore that link.
Separation from mother is sometimes

worse than being with her when she is the
bomb. - Judith Viorst
26
We were each born with approximately 100

billion brain cells. By the time we were three
years old, those cells had migrated into 1,000
trillion neural pathways. Building at a rate of
millions of neural pathways per second,
infants and young children are creating the
structure of their brains based upon what
they experience with their caregivers. This is
the basis of procedural memory: our
experience is literally built into the
architecture of our brains.
Ohs.eu
Infants are far more sensitive than most of us

would imagine possible.
To summarize: What's central is how infants
track their caregivers regarding presence and
absence. "Are you (consistently and
predictably) with me or are you (consistently
and predictably) elsewhere?"
27
security depend upon trusting in the consistent

and caring availability of another.
All infants inevitably experience absence,
moments when their needed caregiver is
unavailable. As it turns out, absence does not
have to be a problem. The life of any growing
child on planet earth will include thousands of
moments of emotional absence, moments that
clearly bring distress and can be experienced
as frightening and lonely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
Here's the part many of us aren't sure we really

want to know: Infants need presence. Infants
are exquisitely sensitive, in a moment-tomoment way, to the presence or absence of
their caregivers. Like the air we breathe,
presence isn't a luxury, it's an absolute
requirement. All current infant research agrees
that our emotional stability and sense of
RUPTURE & REPAIR

Absence sucks, but learning to deal with some
absence in our lives is actually essential. It is
only useful, however, when a caregiver's
inevitable absence is recognized by the
caregiver and repaired. As we just saw in the
28
above video, "the [inevitable] bad" is allowed

to return to "the [essential] good."
and start talking fast. Why don't you like my

reaching? Is there something wrong with me?)
Known as "rupture and repair," when a child

experiences a rupture and also experiences a
caregiver willing to repair that rupture, the
research shows that such a child builds a
deepening sense of trust.
The issue is ruptures that go without repair on

a regular basis; ruptures where the caregiver is
blind to a specific pattern of rupture and thus
does not repair the relationship back toward
shared presence.
"Bad things happen to me, but they are

followed by good things. My caregiver cares
enough to recognize her (or his) mistake and
work it out with me."
After working with parents for so long - upper

class, middle class, and street dependent - Ive
learned that all parents bring some degree of
patterned, consistently un-repaired absence to
their children. Unconscious, unintentional,
never on purpose, the fact remains that almost
all parents block being-with their children
concerning certain emotions. For some, its
that we cannot be-with our childs fear. For
others its that we cant tolerate our childs
anger or sadness or joy or curiosity. We can
allow some of these emotional states, but its
So ultimately, absence, in and of itself, isn't

the issue.
The issue is absence that is repeated in ways
that fit a pattern, a consistent kind of absence
that goes unrecognized by the caregiver.
("When I reach for you, you look away
29
very rare to find a parent who can genuinely

support all of them.
Winnicott said that this point of unconscious

realization is precisely where our innate "true
self" begins to build the facade of a "false self"
or protective self: "Be cute, be charming, stay
hidden, etc., because they don't want to see
how you really feel."
For example, when a child is crying a parent

may subtly attempt to cheer him up, thinking
that making him happy will "solve the
problem" of his sadness. What this parent
doesn't currently know is that some version of
Dont cry (from be a happy baby! to big
boys dont cry) leaves the residue of beingwithout, an absence that lingers. To the child,
this is subtle evidence that No one can join
me here in my sadness. In some way this
translates into "Don't have this feeling" and
"Don't be you in this particular way."
Ordinary Heartbreak
She climbs easily on the box
That seats her above the swivel chair
At adult height, crosses her legs, left ankle over right,
Smooths the plastic apron over her lap

While the beautician lifts her ponytail and laughs,
"This is coarse as a horse's tail."
And then as if that's all there is to say,
The woman at once whacks off and tosses
its foot and a half into the trash.
And the little girl who didn't want her hair cut,
But long ago learned successfully how not to say
What it is she wants,
Over time, the experience for the child is, "I

require connection but I'm un-meetable
here Whenever I get sad, absence
trumps presence."
30
Who, even at this minute cannot quite grasp

her shock and grief,
Is getting her hair cut. "For convenience," her
mother put it.
The long waves gone that had been evidence at night,
When loosened from their clasp,

She might secretly be a princess.
Rather than cry out, she grips her own wrist
And looks to her mother in the mirror.
But her mother is too polite, or too reserved,
So the girl herself takes up indifference,
From this point forward the point captured in

Levines poem and the ones we all experience
people carry, in a place deeper than
conscious awareness, underlying assumptions
and an eventual certainty about "life" which
includes an ever-present, albeit unconscious
experience of "forever empty."
Psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas calls this
learned experience, especially when it happens
at a phase of life before we have language,
our unthought known: that which we always
know but may never actually think. "We learn
the grammar of our lives before we have the
words." This early programming continues to
convince us that the way we see ourselves and
others from this point forward is
unquestionably the way things are.
While pain follows a hidden channel to a deep place
Almost unknown in her,

Convinced as she is, that her own emotions are
not the ones
her life depends on,
She shifts her gaze from her mother's face
Back to the haircut now,
So steadily as if this short-haired child were
someone else. - David Levine
Ruptures without repair become the ongoing

risk of falling forever.
31
Attempting to cross a wide abyss on a tight

rope, who among us wouldn't cling to
something, anything that might keep us from
tumbling?
The operative word here is thing. Some-thing.
Any-thing. No-thing.
So many of us are haunted by absence
("nothingness" and "forever empty"). It is of
clinical interest that this absence is always
accompanied by a phantom sense of pseudopresence, usually in the form of an internal
voice that can seem utterly convincing and
absolutely real.
crazypost.blogspot.com
THE VOICE
Counter-intuitive though it may seem, our

experience of absence always manifests within
the context of this convincing presence; the
ghost of a "not really here, but always here"
companion following us through each day.
Its not true that life is one damn

thing after anotherits one damn
thing over and over.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
32
This companion is almost always negative.

(When it's positive, it is merely an idealization
crafted to cover over something negative, with
the hope of happiness, success or perfection.)
The Voice has (at least) eight common themes:
1. You're not worthy.

2. You're unwanted.
3. You're too different.
4. You're not enough or you're too much.
5. Everyone will leave you.
6. No one will ever understand.
7. Your future will only get worse.
8. You have no right. (Who do you think you
are?)
Some people call this negative internal

commentary, "the Voice."
Life sucks. I suck. That's all there is to it.

There may be an answer, but I'll never
find it.
If only I tried harder, did more, were
better or more perfect, then ...
What's wrong with me?
What's wrong with you?
You're perfect (because I can't risk
feeling you have any flaws).
I'm hopeless (or unlovable or destined for
failure).
We don't typically see these messages

as strategies to stay out of the void and yet
they always are. At their core they follow one
simple principle: Something is never quite
right or always wrong. And someone (often
us) is to blame.
33
There is always something negative

accompanied by a harsh companion that
promises to keep us company.
by a Voice, a negative commentary that

remains ever at our side.
For example, the person with an eating
disorder is always seeing images of herself as
"too fat" with a corresponding Voice
reminding her that she will never be thin. Or
the person with chronic anxiety will
see images of malignant cells accompanied by
a Voice that tells him the current pain in his
stomach is most likely cancer. Or the
perfectionist is always recognizing mistakes
and the Voice is either devaluing her for being
a failure or someone else for not meeting
expectations.
Think about it. Your depression or anxiety or

chronic disappointment or self-criticism
(whatever form your negative certainty shows
up in) always has a subject; something bad or
not so good is currently the focus of your
attention. Something is always wrong or about
to go wrong; missing or about to go missing.
The focus is on something, either outside of
you or inside of you. ("My future." "My
badness." "This loneliness." "This unworkable
relationship.")
Unable to stand absence, we're continually
finding a form of pseudo-presence,
something (a problem) to cling to. This
thing/problem will inevitably be accompanied
Just like the little boy set ablaze by his mother,

we can't not be connected. As we just saw with
the baby in the above video, being in
relationship is, from the point of view of
emotional survival, as important as air is for
34
You live with this child, but you dont know it.
Youre in the office, yes, but live with this boy
at night. Hes uninformed, but he does want
physical survival. In the absence of true

presence, we listen for and cling to the
nagging internal Voice-as-companion
(negative presence).
to save your life. And he has. Because of this boy

you survived a lot. Hes got six big ideas.
Five dont work. Right now hes repeating them
to you. - Robert Bly
As Judith Viorst so poignantly tells us, no

child can withstand complete absence.
Somethingness, even if continually
devastating, is experienced as safer than
absolute nothingness.
This child had to find a way to save us

from moments of absence ("When I get
sad, she gets upbeat," "When I'm upset, he
gets more upset," "When I'm confused, she
changes the subject"). This child-nowVoice doesn't have a clue, but does want
to protect us. Her (or his) message was
learned in a void. We keep thinking it's the
way out.
Theres a boy in you about three

years old who hasnt learned a thing for thirty
thousand years. Sometimes its a girl.
This child had to make up its mind
how to save you from death. He said things like:
Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.
35
STATE OF MIND
absence and the strategies we use to avoid

absence.
As beings hardwired for presence, we recreate

our painful past again and again throughout
each day (without knowing it) in order to
avoid absence.
Hell is a state of mind ... And every

state of mind, left to itself, every
shutting up of the creature within
the dungeon of its own mind - is, in
the end, Hell.
C.S. Lewis
The past isnt dead. Hell, it isnt

even the past.
William Faulkner
allposters.co.uk
A state of mind is a lens through which we

filter our perception of reality. For many of us,
this lens is a distortion that keeps our focus on
www.postsecret.com
36
TWO-LEVEL WORLD
We do not treat our patients to cure

them of something done to them in
the past; rather we are trying to
cure them of what they still do to
themselves and to others in order to
cope with what was done to them in
the past.
I am deeply grateful to psychoanalyst James

Masterson for the following insight, one that
has revolutionized my capacity to understand
human defenses. Given two options, the
second being "forever empty," all of us find a
way to immediately exit such a dismal
possibility. "All alone" vs. defense is never a
jump ball. As infants and as adults, we
inevitably choose to sidestep utter aloneness.
Phillip Bromberg
Suffering is clinging to our past while doing

everything we can to desperately avoid it.
Attachment research adds a new wrinkle. Our

chosen defense inevitably includes some form
of relatedness. Louis C.K. nails it:
It's always about finding connection (" ... grab
that cell phone and text someone") instead of
plummeting into the black hole. "There's
everything in your life" and then there's
"forever empty."
Once we become aware of the

presence/absence paradigm, we begin to have
choice. Said simply: We are either
strengthening our procedural mind, or finding
ways to build a new one. But to build a new
mind, we must recognize how the old mind has
us currently stuck.
37
Two options, and only two options.

Think of it as living in a two-level world.
Level Two is the promise of endless absence.
Level One is our continual return to negative
certainty, a harsh Voice (companion) telling us
bad things about ourselves or our future, while
also making sure we return to whatever
"protective self" game plan seems to keep the
terror at bay ("perform better," "keep
quiet," "be smart," "give in," "try harder,"
"don't stand out").
We dip into Level Two and instantly jump out

to our Level One strategy. Continually.
Literally thousands of times each day.
The journey into Level Two is usually so brief,
we don't notice it consciously. For example, an
important person in your life seems bored
during a conversation (glancing at her phone)
and you have a millisecond of free fall (again
at an unconscious level) into memories of
feeling insignificant to your father or mother
years before. Utter blackness enters for a
38
micro-second, and then the Voice: "You idiot,

say something funny or smart or interesting.
Don't be boring! Why are you such a loser?"
unconsciously choose to keep repeating, all in

the service of staying (or feeling somewhat)
connected. When Buddhists speak of giving up
"attachments," this is what they're addressing.
A connection is a connection is a connection.
Or, you are feeling down and begin to say

something about it to a friend. He listens for a
minute, then takes over the conversation by
describing how this exact same thing recently
happened to him. Inside, you fall deeper into a
feeling of being alone, then quickly the Voice
steps in: "You aren't someone people will ever
understand. You're so freaking weird. You'll
never belong. Quit trying."
What Fairbairn was getting at is that many of

us form an attachment or a bond between
Level One and Level Two. The Voice may be
a distorted bond, but it is a relational bond. It
joins our innate need for connection and our
procedurally learned sense of futility. This
bond shows up as a relationship, a harsh
companion that is trying, as Robert Bly
describes, to do its best to save us.
Utterly critical, yet absolutely here with you.

Distorted yes; mean, yes. But with you ... for
sure.
Having learned that it can't count on another in

moments of vulnerability, the Voice is
continually speaking a four-word mantra that
will follow us around the rest of our life: "It's
up to me."
Psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn called this

an obstinate attachment: clinging to a
negative pattern in our history that we
39
Let's not forget that our Voice has actually

saved us: we actually have something to focus
on and a constant companion, relentless yet
predictable. Something is better than
nothing(ness).
And yet, it hasn't saved us. Learned in
darkness, this Voice speaks only darkness. So
many of us continue to suffer mightily because
of this dark bond.
maddebelle.blogspot.com
Formed in childhood when we lack

perspective, the Voice has no idea how to
really be of help. Born within a context of
confusion and pain, its attempts to take charge
were desperate, flailing stabs in the
dark: misguided strategies that sought to give
meaning to what felt utterly meaningless. ("If
you were just prettier, more intelligent, always
upbeat people would like you.") Formed in
emptiness, it continually reinforces emptiness.
40
Here is the hope:
Here is where we're about to go: What if

the presence we're all seeking is, well, always
present ... hidden-in-plain-sight?
We need to realize that a reconfiguration of

our brains, one that supports an updated
awareness of holding and accepts that new
possibility is actually available, requires
repeated and genuine experiences of the
presence we've been waiting for. Just as
importantly, it necessitates our conscious,
active participation in no longer dismissing the
possibility of a reality (currently unseen) more
loving, simple, direct, and generous than the
one our procedural certainty tells us is the only
option.
Mike Peters/Mother Goose & Grimm
41
Hidden-in-Plain-Sight
Until recently, science said the universe was

made up of a bunch of things: asteroids,
planets, stars, and galaxies, all floating in a
hollow void. But in the past three decades
cosmologists and astrophysicists have begun
to recognize an unseen, yet always present,
background in which all recognizable material
exists. Known as dark matter/dark energy, we
now understand this invisible background to
make up more than 95% of the universe.
You think because you understand

one you also comprehend two,
because one and one make two. But
to truly understand one plus one,
you must first comprehend AND.
Sufi wisdom saying
How do scientists detect dark matter/dark

energy? By its gravitational pull on everything: from atoms to stars (which, by the way,
make up less than 1% of the universe). All
recognizable matter is under the direct
influence of a non-recognizable force that
exerts its influence on every known thing.
Indeed, dark matter/dark energy is, in this very
Within the paradigm of scientific materialism,

over the past few centuries we have turned
almost exclusively to trusting only what we
can see and measure. If it cant be recognized
as some-thing, labeled and counted, then it
isn't considered valid. Absence of proof
equals proof of absence. Unseen is now
synonymous with unreal.
Big mistake.
42
moment, influencing and bending the arc of

every galaxy in the universe.
AND is always hidden-in-plain-sight, calling

the shots. Attachment research is remarkably
clear: When a child experiences trusted access
to AND, that child will be predictably secure
and at ease in her life. We now have thousands
of research studies from every continent, each
arriving at this same conclusion. Some have
begun to call attachment research "The
Science of AND."
Unseen, yet real.

So it is with AND.
Not dissimilar to dark matter, AND is always
exerting its pull on our lives. Unseen and real.
UNSEEN REAL
The following image is an orphan in Iraq, who
draws a picture of a mother each night and
sleeps inside.
When a child cant trust AND (when her

caregiver cant offer ways to mutually
negotiate AND), that child will be insecure
and will need to establish a protective strategy
to avoid the pain of no-AND (absence).
Im hunching you cant think of a recent novel
or movie dealing with the human condition
(whether written recently or 500 years ago)
that didnt center around AND. The drama
and difficulty at the heart of any story happens
www.pinterest.com
43
because the key players require AND, are

seeking AND, while struggling to negotiate
AND.
THE PLOT THICKENS:

RESONANCE & POTENTIAL SPACE
As an attachment researcher I've come to
recognize that infants and young children, as
they are forming their view of how AND
manifests in their lives, require two central
themes from their presence-givers:
Here's the heartbeat of what every child needs

to learn about AND:
"I am with you.
You are with me.
No matter what happens, we will get through it
together."
You. Me. Us.
You. Me. AND.
1. Predictable, steady, and tender

availability.
2. Support for an ever-changing experience
of fresh possibility.
Babies are hardwired for what we
call resonance: presence that has
both stability (steady predictability)
and flow (non-formulaic attunement to the
moment-to-moment shifts in a child's
emotional state.)
I have never seen anyone outgrow a need for

this core requirement of shared
companionship. Always carrying a sense of
you, me, and us into each of lifes
circumstances is both good and healthy.
44
Donald Winnicott also had a name for this

other aspect of a child's need. We already
know half of Winnicott's equation; here is the
second half. Children need an underlying
holding environment that simultaneously
offers, in each new moment, what he described
as potential space.
Resonance is the opposite of static, rigid,

robotic formulas. Resonance has no agenda or
manual. It is attuned to the flow of another's
ever-changing experience.
A Zen student enters his teachers

room. The teacher offers a cup of
tea. I dont need tea Master, I
need to be shown Original Reality.
The Masters instant reply: It just
moved.
Presence must be both

unchanging/unconditional and alwaysnew. See how this works with baby Oliver:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcp6xw1qNZA
Comedy Central
45
Our first relationships dont have to be terribly

bad in order for us to eventually feel both
terrible and bad. Momentary cues for beingwith from an infant that go unrecognized by
the caregiver ("I want you here with me, and I
need you to slow down to my pace and my
rhythm"), are not experiences that most of us
would consider dangerous or severe.
Attachment research keeps returning to the

same conclusion: healthy, secure relationships
always include room for the uniqueness of
each individual and the richness of the AND
that connects them. (Interestingly, a significant
characteristic of many insecure adults is the
habitual denial and devaluation of the
connection they most need. "I dont really
have needs. It's all up to me. I'm alone, I know
well all die alone and I'm courageous to admit
it.")
In every culture thus far studied, genuine
security in children (and adults) always
includes the capacity to trust in AND.
Me. You. Us.
Sadly, trust in AND isn't as common as we'd
like to believe.
46
WATCHING LINDSEY
Attachment researchers spend a great deal of

time watching babies with their caregivers in
millisecond interactions. We notice how
infants are always paying very close attention
to the willingness of their caregiver to follow
their lead.
[From our earliest moments on

planet earth] theres one question
that all brains want answered, and
they want it answered, Yes. And
they dont want a lukewarm Yes,
or a Maybe Yes, or a Getting-toYes, Yes. They want a substantial,
resounding, unequivocal, YES!
Yes. When the answer is something
other than Yes, if the answer is
Maybe, or Im not sure, a
confusion and uncertainty begins to
take shape in our brains. The
question our brains ask is: Are you
there for me? Do I matter enough
that youll put me first when I need
you to? Can I count on you to attend
to me in the ways I need you to? Do I
truly and deeply matter to you?
So, as an attachment researcher it is my job to

pay exquisite attention to how infants pay
exquisite attention to the quality of AND
between their caregivers and themselves. In
the following observation of video freezeframe you will witness baby Lindsey
experience AND as a question: "Are you here
with me now? And now? And now? Will you
stay with me as I change moment to moment?
Can you say YES to all of me or are there
places in me where you start saying Maybe
yes. Or No Way?"
Mark Brady, Ph.D.

47
Im sitting next to a mother as she perches on her
of her chair, returns her mothers smile for several
chairs edge, looking toward a video monitor
seconds and then looks out beyond her mom, then
placed in front of us. Monica is a highly
down and to the right. Monica immediately shifts
successful young professional seeking help
her weight, bringing her head into alignment with
because her four-month-old daughter Lindsey,
her daughters new position. With a cheerful,
just cries and cries, unable to calm herself
bubbly voice mom chants Lindsey, Lindsey! Hey,
down. After a brief pause she adds, Maybe I
Linds! Her daughters shoulders shrug briefly as
spoil her, because she seems so ungrateful. Im
she momentarily meets her mothers gaze. They
about to show a recently recorded videotape of this
both grin, each smiling, but this time Lindseys
mother and daughter in a standard laboratory
smile seems slightly odd, almost forced. The
interactive session. The screen displays Monica as
babys eyes quickly move up past her mother to the
she sits on a folding chair directly facing Lindsey,
lights on the ceiling. The mothers smile falters for
who is leaning back in a car seat looking in the
a few tenths of a second, then seems to ratchet up a
direction of her mom.
notch. Monica raises her right hand and
As Monica and I watch the monitor, we see how
commences to gently, but insistently poke her
she is smiling broadly, eyes dilated, intensely
childs tummy. You like to be tickled dont you?
focusing upon her daughter. This mother, utilizing
Yes, you do. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. As she
her signature upbeat intonation, calls out to
finishes the third repetition of gotcha, Lindsey
Lindsey in a high-pitched voice. Hey Linds!
winces briefly, then begins to whimper. Not yet
Watcha doinn? Her daughter, head at the back
crying, it is clear that she soon will. Mother

48
opportunity to experience the relationship

from her childs perspective. Instead, because
she is feeling momentarily rejected this mother
withdraws her warmth. Shell back off, but
with a sense of confusion and growing
resentment. Sadly, they are moving into a
relationship where neither mother nor daughter
will feel they can get things right.
momentarily shifts her gaze out and away from

Lindsey, frowns slightly, and with a barely
discernible irritation turns to face her daughter.
This mothers tone is suddenly flat, the cheer fully
vanished. I think youre just sleepy. You just get
so cranky when you need a nap. Now turning
away, she begins rummaging through her purse.
With a voice slightly aloof, almost curt, she
intones: Let me find your Binky.
Moments of not meeting. Moments of void.
From a clinical perspective, what weve just

seen is a mother whose hope for shared
happiness makes it hard to read her daughters
bids for personal space and a slower, less
frantic rhythm. Because of this mothers
inability to dial-down her own need, her child
eventually winces and whimpers, cuing ever
more directly that moms intense agenda is
simply too much. Unfortunately, when Monica
notices her daughters distance, she misses an
To paraphrase Winnicott: It is easier to

remember difficult, even traumatic events,
than it is to remember moments of absence,
where presence was needed. How do you
remember nothing happening when an
attuned response was needed? How do you
remember the specifics of emptiness?
What weve seen here certainly wouldnt be
defined as neglect or abandonment, at least not
49
a therapist. It makes absolutely no sense. I

had an almost perfect childhood. My mom was
utterly devoted to me. But, inside I feel lost,
like no one actually Gets it. Gets me. Im
never really happy, or even satisfied. Theres
something really wrong with me. Im such an
ungrateful bitch.
in the way we might typically understand these

terms. Even so, four-month-old Lindsey has
begun to experience something of what its
like to feel unknown. Naturally, instinctively
seeking an experience of AND from a mother
who is well-intentioned but unable to read
some of her cues, Lindsey already has a
dawning sense of being a stranger in a strange
land.
There shell still be sitting, feeling terrible and

bad. There she'll sit blaming herself for an
emptiness that makes no sense.
How is Lindsey to make sense of the fact that

the central figure in her life, the one teaching
her the structure and nuance of relationship, is
unable to read her requests for less pressure
and more personal space? How, at four months
old, is she to understand the sense of absence
she is already beginning to know?
She will sit in absence, yet she won't feel

completely alone. Lindsey will have
something bad about herself and her life to
focus on, and she'll have a persistent, harsh,
yet ever-present Voice keeping her company.
Unfortunately, I see this in therapy patients
like a grown-up Lindsey all the time.
Years later, unable to decipher persistent

feelings of isolation and a tendency for selfattack, Lindsey might find herself speaking to
50
NO-THINGNESS
Here's where the best hint I know

begins: AND isn't to be found in the ways
we're used to finding something. Because
AND isn't a thing. Rather, it's the hidden-inplain-sight, dark matter, unseen background
being-with that is always present. For
everything and everyone.
We're back at square one.

Many of us didn't actually know resonance
(either holding or potential space) at the
level we most needed it when we were
building our definition of "reality."
The questions we need to ask: Can we
change? Can we find AND now? Is it too late
to know being-with?
AND holds galaxies, atoms, and everything in

between.
www.guysfromandromeda.com
51
AND holds each of us, whether we know it or

not.
Each something is a celebration of

the no-thing that supports it.
John Cage
AND isn't a thing. AND holds all things. AND

is resonance-between-things.
When Piglet says "nothing" he is saying "nothing." Piglet is saying, "What I most need is
no-thingness. I need not-thing-ness. I need the
AND-that-holds; resonance. I need the nonthingness at the heart of all things
shared with you."
www.mobilemedia.com
When Piglet says "nothing," Piglet is naming

the unrecognized, yet always present
background, the AND that, once recognized,
becomes holding personified.

Hidden-in-plain-sight.
52
acs.psu.edu.gif
www.babyblog.com
Out of no-thingness, holding and

newness continually arise. As Meister Eckhart
said 800 years ago: "There exists in the present
instant, a now which, without end, is ever
new." Presence is synonymous with
emergence. AND is being born now.
And now.
And now.
No-thingness is actually the opposite of our

procedural experience of "nothingness." Those
of us who are afraid (or certain) that we live in
a universe of random nothingness are actually
reliving and describing the vacancy of our
learned absence. This is memory now
masquerading as "reality." Nothingness-asworldview confirms itself, becoming
increasingly rigid and ultimately static. It was
53
cool and distant when we were young allowing

all of reality to appear impersonal and
vacant now.
(and now and now) activated, alive, new

... with shared presence.
Whenever we open to AND, we experience
presence. Whenever we deny AND, we
reconfirm absence.
But no-thingness is vital, fresh, and filled with

caring.
www.Pinterest.com
Being-with is never some-thing. It's the utterly

obvious but all-too-often unrecognized
resonance of between-ness. Space that
appeared empty remains space, yet it is now
54
TRANSITIONAL PRESENCE
I once heard a man say that he had decided to
choose his religion by whichever one had the
best imaginary friend. Donald Winnicott might
have agreed. Winnicott believed that a young
childs holding companion (what he called
a transitional object) was offering an essential
relationship that was both imagined and real;
more real and more essential than a rational
mind can comprehend.
Transitional objects allow us to, well,

transition: to bring being-with with us. They
also allow us to loosen our grip on
"reality." Children can be given the luxury of
not having to decide between the "real" world
and a world of deepening, rich, relational
complexity, one that includes me, you and us
in the essential form of tender, ongoing
(wherever I go there you are) companionship.
Paraphrasing Winnicott: "My fuzzy friend is

partly me and partly you. My friend is mewith-you; you-with-me.
Me AND you. Otherwise Im only me
... alone.
55
Rather than wishful thinking, our willingness

to risk and trust may be precisely how we
enter a realm that can only be experienced
through a combination of uncertainty
and confidence. It just may take more courage
to risk trusting in the unseen (almost)
known than to remain safe in our predictable,
procedural ("It's up to me alone, but at least
I'm not kidding myself") certainty.
When a child loves you for a long,

long time, not just to play with, but
REALLY loves you, then you become
Real.
Margery Williams
We are hardwired for relationship. We are
hardwired for an experience of me with you;
you AND me. This need never goes away.
When allowed, young children don't outgrow
their gentle companions, rather they bring this
trusted presence with them into each encounter
from that point forward.
I Pick Up a Hitchhiker
After a few miles, he tells me
that my car has no engine.
I pull over, and we both get out
and look under the hood.
He's right.
We don't say anything more about it
all the way to California.
As adults, can we give ourselves the option

that securely attached children are given, the
option of not having to decide between the
real world of consensual reality and a reality
that offers shared presence deeper than proof?
- Jay Leeming
56
BACK TO AND
AND is never a secondary factor in our lives.
As is true with dark matter/energy, we cant

see AND. But, from the perspective of
developmental psychology, AND
is the context that is always actively
influencing the text (bending the arc) of
every life: child or adult.
When AND isn't present we always suffer.

Can you think of a time when the loss of a
genuine experience of AND felt good? Isn't
the inability to experience AND at the heart of
your deepest pain, either past or present?
Finding ways to directly access AND
becomes, from my vantage point, the central
task of our lives.
If AND is such a central player in all that

were about, if AND is always present and
negotiable when were secure, yet limited and
not-so-negotiable when were insecure, maybe
AND has something to do with the underlying
structure of the universe we were born into.
Our hardwired need for AND (simple,
attuned presence with us) is definitely no
sentimental pretense in an otherwise real
world understanding of things.
57
TURNING WORD
Thirst. And. Tenderness.
Almost thirty years ago, during a week-long

meditation retreat with my Zen teacher Joko
Beck, something snapped in a very negative
way. Seemingly out of nowhere, the chronic,
relentless pain that had been in my head for
the past 10 years seemed to intensify, and over
the next few hours my mind felt as though it
might shatter. The very pain that Id been
learning to hold and be-with was suddenly
unbearable. Everything in my life that
had begun to make sense, now seemed an
illusion.
www.likecool.com
Immediately I reverted to my earlier certainty

that life was suffering and suffering only.
This is my core contention: We live in a

Mysterious, yet deeply coherent
universe. Absence implies presence. Need
implies holding. Our hidden longing is
indication of Hidden Intimacy awaiting us.
I was desperate to talk with Joko in the midst

of this all-to-familiar free-fall; it was as
though I was reliving my childhood. While
58
making arrangements for this conversation, the

monitor with whom I was interacting seemed
to be exceptionally kind, calm, and focused.
Was it her tone of voice, her quiet smile, her
unrushed manner? I didn't know, but as I
entered the consulting room to talk with Joko,
I mentioned my momentary interaction with
the monitor. Then I named my overwhelming
despair about how the pain in my head was
suddenly, yet again, swamping me.
I began to sob. "No, Joko, I do not. I don't

think I ever have."
Joko listened with great care, saying nothing.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, she
asked a question that included a central
observation: "Kent, you don't really know
much about tenderness, do you?"
She slowly began to smile, nodding in

agreement.
Her next statement would alter my life forever:

"What do you think this is all about?" (As she
said the word "this" she gestured with her arms
in a full circle.)
"What do you mean Joko? Are you saying that
enlightenment has something to do with
tenderness?
I continued to cry throughout the remainder of

the retreat and into the weeks that followed.
During another retreat, maybe a year later,
Joko said what I now consider to be a
summary of her teaching. "If there's an orphan
in our lives, it's our pain. Nobody wants their
The world literally stood still. In that stillness

a childhood of loneliness and ever-present fear
exploded through my body.
59
pain. We want it gone. That's a big part of

what meditation offers, no longer pushing pain
away. Sitting, just being-with this exact pain.
Every moment is just another opportunity to
stay simple and hold the orphan of your pain."
All these years later, the continual pain on the
right side of my head continues. On most days,
most of the time, it is no longer an orphan.
Underneath all his preoccupations

with sex, society, religion, etc.
(all the staple abstractions which
allow the forebrain to chatter) there
is,
quite simply, a person tortured
beyond endurance by the lack of
tenderness in the world.
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Lawrence Durrell
60
FRACTAL
These days, as I observe a teenage,
recently homeless mother with a history of
severe abuse and neglect offering simple,
genuine, ongoing tenderness to her baby, I
trust that I am seeing the hardwiring we all
share. Over the years I've observed dozens of
young mothers choose to dig deeper than a
personal history of pain. In every case these
parents find an innate capacity to become
increasingly secure and lovingly available for
their (increasingly) secure children. I fully
trust that these courageous souls
are manifesting what D.H. Lawrence called,
"the living, incarnate universe."
Rebecca Templin: Spokane Moms & Children
Love is given, not taught. AND emerges

naturally, rather than being learned. Original
presence is always awaiting discovery.
Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen once
described our capacity to love as "the most
divine captured in the most human."
Seen in this way, the universe is a fractal. The
smaller is a direct manifestation of the Larger.
Like Russian nesting dolls, the Larger-as61
original pattern is contained within the

smaller. At every level: everything is the same,
only different.
the universe? (Abba or "Daddy" is the most

intimate term for father in Jesus' native
Aramaic. Who knows, he may also have used
the word Amma.)
Reality is that which, when you stop

believing in it, doesnt go away.
Philip K. Dick
Fortunately, for many of us the ultimate nature
of reality is infinitely larger than our early
experiences here on planet earth. As a
clinician and one who meditates, I have come
to trust that my (and your) hardwiring for
presence isnt some random occurrence within
a cosmos empty of compassion. Rather, this
deep coherence is built into who we are. We
are, as James Joyce said, living within the
"Mama matrix most mysterious."
www.pinterst.com
Tenderness is a fractal. Being-with is a fractal.

Presence is a
fractal.
Is it a coincidence that Jesus used the
word Abba to describe the ultimate nature of
62
A man had spent years in search of what he

described as "the key to the universe." Seeking
only the world's greatest teachers, he
continually found himself disappointed in their
answers. He was finally led to the cave of an
old monk secluded deep in the mountains of
Tibet. All who knew this monk assured the
man that his answer would finally be found
here.
"Most Revered Master, please, I've traveled
for years in search of the key to the universe."
"Well," said the Master, "I have some good
news and some bad news."
"The bad?" inquired the man with a very
worried face.
"There is no key."
"And the good?" the man blurted out, now
desperate.
"It was never locked."
Holly Hunter Peterson; Kim Krull; Pinterest
Throughout history, the originators of the

major faith traditions have sought to offer a
path to this hidden-in-plain-sight deeper
dimension. (Sadly, their followers have often
been swamped by the same procedural
strategies for self-protection and control that
blunt or fully block access to this hidden
reality.)
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PRESENCE IN ABSENCE
After years of focusing on presence and
absence, I was walking down a street in
Amsterdam in 2014. There, on a vacant
storefront window, was written - in English the following piece of graffiti.
The whole world lives within a

safeguarding, fish inside waves,
birds held in the sky ... even the
ground, the air, the water, every
spark floating up from the fire: all
subsist, exist, are held in the divine.
Nothing is ever alone for a single
moment.
Rumi
Often, as people learn about the specifics of
procedural memory, a certain despair sets in.
If I didnt get what I needed early on, and Im
now stuck with an automated belief system
that isnt particularly good at trusting, wheres
the hope?
Adding insult to injury, procedural memory

turns out to be remarkably resistant to change.
As infant researcher Daniel Stern states it,
64
History creates inertia. Experience follows

expectation.
our longing for presence any more than we

choose our need of water.
So, yes: many of us have something of a tall

mountain to climb.
This is where our deepest hardwiring comes

in. Said another way, this is where the
underlying nature of our need, and the larger
universe from which it emerges, comes into
the picture.
Thirst is proof of water.

Sufi wisdom saying
"We cannot live dry." - Mark Nepo
Robert Frost wrote that each of us have an

irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Developmental psychologists the world over
know were hardwired for relationship, that
built within us is an undeniable thirst for the
AND of love. Our need for presence isnt a
luxury, or some add on should we be
fortunate enough to find it. We dont choose
Only love fulfills.

As Ive said previously, I believe our need for
intimacy is the manifestation of a universe
ready to meet it. Our thirst for presence is
map, not aberration. Neither is it failing
or indication of something wrong with us. Our
thirst for belonging is our greatest guide.
Original need requires original presence.
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At this point, the only issue is whether were

willing to allow our deep need for presence to
change us, or if we'll keep our longing buried
in negative certainty, locked inside lives as
weve always known them.
Give your weakness

to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great
resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Its one thing to recognize our thirst for AND;

its another thing altogether to make the
decision to access it.
Just a little beginning-whimper,

and shes there.
God created the child, that is, your
wanting,
so that it might cry out, so that milk might
come.
Cry out! Dont be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.
-Rumi
66
A SUMMARY OF WHERE WEVE

COME
now being created by

our current agreement with what we originally
learned about relationship. The prisoner has
unwittingly become the jailer.
Without knowing it, we typically recreate our

painful past again and again throughout each
day. But, our early procedural programming
can only continue to call the shots if we stay
inside the spell it keeps weaving, recommitting
thousands of times each day to see the world
through a lens of negative options.
We may not be able to stop the old messages

that the Voice continues to whisper, but once
we recognize these messages as early
programming, any ongoing acquiesce to their
validity becomes consent.
Once again: We are always either
strengthening our procedural mind or finding
ways to build a new one.
Waking up includes becoming aware that we
live inside a pre-programmed jail cell. It also
includes finding a way to live outside its
limitations. In order to do so, something
essential remains to be done if we wish to gain
access to a more freeing option. Initially, well
need to ask several questions in order to find
The Matrix/Warner Bros.
Not only were neural pathways formed in our

earliest years, but new neural pathways are
67
the way beyond the limitations of procedural

memory:
experience a new mind, even though the

learned difficulties of our old mind continue to
persist?
What if reality is actually larger than the

one we were first taught to know?
What if there is a context bigger than the
narrative/text we were taught to believe?
(Not that our early learning was
inaccurate, because it clearly does tell the
story, true in its own way, about what our
initial experiences felt like.)
Does the sense of certainty instilled in our
early neural pathways define the full
range of options available to us now?
Do the limitations of our original
caregivers accurately describe the entire
spectrum of holding and possibility
available to us in this moment?
www.imgarcade.com
Daniel Siegel, a brain researcher at UCLA,

puts it this way: Where attention goes,
neurons fire. And where neurons fire, they
rewire. Our sense of reality is indeed fully
capable of being expanded. Our brains,
regardless of age, are available for rewiring.
Said another way, can fresh options be added

to our sense of whats possible? Can we
68
Our worldview is not limited to our initial,

procedurally learned conclusions. Deeper
down, the cement remains wet.
But, there remains a central caveat. The
rewiring of procedural negativity doesnt seem
to happen without two key ingredients:
Actual experience of authentic presence

and possibility, holding and potential
space beyond our original sense of
negative certainty,
A willingness to actively try to accept
this new experience of presence in spite
of a continuing felt certainty about
absence.
www.Flickr.com
Fortunately, we have that exact option: the

intentional, gradual acceptance of a deeper,
always-present, underlying AND; presence
that holds the possibility of new possibility.
Being-with that meets us (and our orphaned
selves) exactly where we are, offering
tenderness.
In other words, we need to find a way to

practice presence in absence.
69
(E)MERGING THEMES
We are, of course, venturing into that place
where the core themes of psychology merge
with the core themes of sacred practice.
In the deeps are the violence and

terror of which psychology has
warned us. But if you ride these
monsters deeper down, if you drop
with them farther over the worlds
rim, you find what our sciences
cannot locate or name, the substrate,
the ocean or matrix or ether which
buoys the rest ... the unified field:
our complex and inexplicable caring
for each other, and for our life
together here. This is given. It is not
learned.
Annie Dillard
There is, indeed, a place of "forever empty," a
lived absence that brings only terror. Deeper
still there exists hidden grounding: Sacred
ground, holding all things, even the black hole
itself. Catholic monk Thomas Merton
www.refreshtallahassee.org
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"God," "Original Presence, Ground of

Being, no matter what name we choose, the
Source of all things cannot be owned,
trademarked, or controlled. Great Mystery
simply cannot be possessed. (This has not
stopped many within organized religions from
attempting to do so for millennia.)
described it as "hidden wholeness," the

unseen, unrecognized source from which
all things unfold.
Now.
Now.
And now.
Named or unnamed, hidden wholeness is

always grounding us. It always holds what
is and offers newness from the roots we find
here. This dimension, further down, cannot be
attained or acquired. It is given. We either
awaken to holding or we don't. We either trust
in roots that are already deep and sustaining
us, or we deny them by believing they must
first be earned or we refuse to believe that
grounding is even possible.
This hidden dimension has a thousand names,

yet remains beyond all names.
71
always dynamic, alive, and outside the control

of any set definition.
How long does it take to discover hidden

holding? Only as long as it takes to realize it
takes no time at all.
We dare not call this deeper dimension
anything. If we were to call it Level Three, we
would immediately "thingify" what is
continually emerging, fresh, unbound. ("It just
moved.") Wholeness-as-potential space is
www.likecool.com
Maybe its Level AND.

Now. AND now. AND now.
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HIDDEN HOLDING
belonging is our original nature. Until and

unless we begin to know this, nothing else
actually matters. John Main says the first
step is all about this learning.
The first step in spiritual practice is

to know ourselves to be lovable and
allow ourselves to be loved.
I do not expect to ever move beyond this first

step.
John Main, O.S.B.

In the decades since my tenderness opening
with Joko, I have continued to sit in
meditation as a way of gradually accessing the
presence I didnt know as a child. Slowly,
year-by-year, I have increasingly opened to the
underlying tenderness of hidden holding, a
presence I could never have imagined in my
earlier life.
Through the years I have come to realize that
psychotherapy and meditation practice are
ultimately about the same theme: coming to
trust that we are lovable and loved, that
Michael Hills/Brisbane
This picture of a young childs hands in the

larger hands of his loving parent is the image I
73
HARD WORK
now look upon in order to be reminded of my

deepest need. It is this image I bring with me
into my daily meditation practice.
I use centering as a verb, to mean a

continual process of uniting the
opposites. Centering, for me, is the
discipline of bringing in rather than
leaving out; of saying yes to what is
most holy as well as to what is most
unbearable. The severity of that, as a
discipline, is not widely understood.
Until and unless I know the truth of holding,

what I do with my life is just more of being
busy and self-protective at Level One, trying
to stay away from each youre unlovable and
unloved being whispered from Level Two.
This is big work.
M.C. Richards
Trusting, for those of us who first learned not
to trust, is no simple task. Thomas Merton
says it well: "Prayer and love are learned in
the hour when prayer becomes impossible and
the heart has turned to stone." There are many
days when Im forced to realize that my heart
is hardened and that Im unable to even
consider trusting in love.
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Here is the learning: the most unbearable can

(and must) be brought into direct contact
with the most sacred; the orphan needs to
finally come home. It is here that we discover
a hidden alchemy.
choose the discipline of inviting Presence.

This is the hardest work I know.
And it is no work at all.
The hard work is that I must choose to allow
the unbearable (a dark memory or a seemingly
impossible circumstance in my current life) to
come into focus. The "no work" is that I
realize it's no longer up to me. I'm learning
to allow AND (hidden wholeness emerging in
this new moment) to do the deeper work often at a level my conscious mind can't
fathom. I sit inside the pain, but I no longer sit
alone.
In practical terms, how do I do this? I stop
doing. I simply allow my breathing to slow to
a gentle pace. I ask this next tender breath to
meet me in the darkness of the painful
ordinary.
www.likecool.com
It is precisely in these moments, when being

met seems impossible, that I am learning to
75
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJFVqIZA08
Above Video: Tender in-breath, tender outbreath, tender in-breath ... whether for 30
seconds or 30 minutes, this is the hidden-inplain-sight gift of finding a simple, always
available practice. (More on this in the
conclusion.)
This moment, exactly as it is (good, bad, or

ugly), is met with this tender breath.
The tough news: In certain moments "the most
unbearable" will inevitably emerge. The good
news: There is a radical difference between
sensing "the unbearable" while feeling alone in
the darkness ...
76

This we have now
is not imagination.
This is not
grief or joy.
... and experiencing the same sensation within the holding of a tender breath.
Not a judging state,

or an elation,
or sadness.
Those come
and go.
This is the Presence
that doesnt.
Rumi
77
DAILY PRACTICE
You may notice that I now capitalize the word

Presence. I have gradually come to recognize
that presence/Presence is a fractal. I have
gradually come to trust in a sense of loving,
holding companionship in all of this an
Other who is with me and,
inexplicably, for me. (I tend to get nervous
when people talk this way. It can so easily be
filled with a self-certainty that puts me off.
Even so, in my own experience, this quiet
awareness is simply true.)
The outcome? Change happens. Real change at

a level I have not found any other way. This
process of change, of necessity, requires a
daily discipline, the importance of which is
not widely understood.
It's one thing to have a new insight. But the
capacity to trust is a whole new ballgame.
When our "unthought known" speaks absence,
trust can be gradually built through a
discipline of dual awareness. For ten or twenty
or thirty minutes a day we can sit and breathe
with an intention: 1. to recognize negative or
fearful thoughts as memories-of-absence
(while periodically saying "Of course,"
which dissipates their power), and 2: of
simultaneously rewiring our brain's
architecture by creating new neural pathways
bathed-in-Presence. More on this later.
Me. AND. Another. Hardwired and

simple. Nothing special, yet absolutely
essential.
Through the years I have moved from silence
to Silence, from presence to Presence. Ive
come to recognize that tenderness doesnt
show up as some-thing; rather, tenderness is
found with another.
78

Buddhists often speak of enlightenment as the
direct experience of intimacy. Christians, in
the 1800's, would speak of finding God as
"being met by the Great Affection."
Jan Parker
Absence of proof is no longer proof of

absence. Unseen isnt the same as unreal or
unavailable. Ive come to know Presence by
how I shift internally: I settle, I rest, I feel less
alone, and sometimes I feel deeply
connected, as though Ive come home.
Sometimes this intimacy is experienced with

another person: the touch of a friend, the
memory of a teacher's voice, the glance of a
child. Sometimes, its the greeting from an
animal, walking past a familiar tree, the
coloring of the sky. And sometimes, sitting in
the quiet of the morning, I find tender
companionship in an ineffable,
discernible Presence too subtle to be
grasped. Uncertain, yet sure.
How could it be otherwise? The child/parent

paradigm wasnt pathological when we were
young. It isnt pathological now. The needs
each of us originally had for holding from a
loving caregiver (soothing, support, organizing
guidance) don't disappear. Our early absolute
dependence hasn't disappeared, we just learned
79
to defend against it. ("It's up to me.") Our

original needs are primal, ongoing, and always
relevant. Acknowledging this has become the
foundation of my daily practice.
Vulnerability is sacred. Isolation is a lie.

Which is to say that Ive learned to risk
becoming dependent in a way that is risky and
soothing in the same moment. I often enter my
procedural certainty (absence is the final
word") while at the same time trusting that
Presence (vast, fathomless, tender, and
intimate) is with me and for me, holding and
providing what I most need.
This has led to a new kind of trust. Admitting

need on a regular basis, I have realized that
Im no longer the prime mover in my life. As
I said a few moments ago, it isnt up to me
after all. Ive chosen to be less in charge and
more available to the hidden, yet consistent
Presence and gradual transformation being
offered.
Thirst is, indeed, proof of water.

This learning has made all the difference.
Give your weakness to one who helps ... is

the very thing I learned not to do as a child. As
an adult Ive had to admit the painful cost of
this negative conclusion, and to gradually
recognize that hell has nothing to do with
weakness or vulnerability and everything to do
with isolation.
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80
MEDITATION-AS-PRAYER
I have a dear friend, a Catholic

Cistercian monk, who has dedicated her life to
meditation and prayer. I once put the
following question before her: "What, in all
your years in this monastery, is your greatest
learning?"
Gradually, over the years, my meditation

practice has become what might better be
described as a life of prayer. Maybe it's
meditation-as-prayer.
Where nothing was, no-thing now is.
AND abounds.
Veronique's answer was immediate, brief,

and confident, "I have learned to ask."
This next breath becomes an opportunity to

ask the Real to enter my still complicated and
often confused life. This next tender breath is
an admission that my need is deep and that it
wont ever be met by me alone. My great
mistake has been the belief that it could be.
So prayer is our sometimes real

selves trying to communicate with
the Real, with the Light. It is us
reaching out to be heard, hoping to
be found by a light and warmth in
the world, instead of darkness and
cold.
Anne Lamott
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You have done well

In the contest of madness.
With your ideas of

God,
You were brave in that holy war ...
O, surely there is something wrong

With your ideas of
God,
May I speak to you

Like we are close?
If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.
Once I found a stray kitten

And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;
- Hafiz
It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.
Weary traveler,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes ...
Surely
There is something wrong
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Conclusion
My "unthought known" is
gradually becoming Unthought Knowing, trust
deeper than words.
... enter the breathing that is more

than your own.
I no longer ask for an end to darkness, only to

draw my next breath in tender Presence.
Rainer Maria Rilke
"I am with you.

You are with me.
No matter what happens, we will get through it
together."
Presence in absence; I find ten-thousand
blessings.
www.Flickr.com/eightysevenminutes.co
Show me the path to enlightenment.

83
It just moved.
Silence deeper than silence is Presence,

One always waiting and always welcoming me
home. It is here, in this quiet affection (one so
many of us have no clue is possible) that
I finally know peace.
Breath is always moving.
I am lovable and loved, after all.

We all are.
Tenderness offered, tenderness finally
received.
Most of each day we're taking breaths. Rarely

do we slow ourselves enough
to enterand receive a breath. This next breath
can be entered as one might enter a sanctuary.
Entering. AND. Receiving.
Yet, there remains one additional step: As I
enter and receive, I also open to being
received. I open to being welcomed. The
www.Pinterest.com
84
I've never been one who was particularly good

at "living in the now." Even so, I've gradually
built a capacity, during random moments each
day, to be-with one tender breath (or two, or
seven).
Gone are the days of a more formal sitting

posture (I continue to sit respectfully, yet
comfortably). I say a brief prayer that admits
my ongoing need, slow my breathing, allowing
it to deepen just a bit, and enter the Tenderness
I cannot own. Sometimes I silently breathe the
word Tender or Abba or "Amma" or
"Home." Sometimes I simply breathe.
Entering this breath I receive this offered

tenderness: deeper than thought, deeper than
negative certainty; a sanctuary hidden-in-thismoment.
Presence beyond all names,

I need more deeply than I can know.
I ask to be given what I most need.
Please be with any thought or memory
that tries to convince me Im all alone.
Please heal what I have no power to heal.
Please fill me with your Tenderness.
Amen.
I'm less focused on my awareness of each

breath and increasingly focused on reverence
and gratitude for each breath. The shift is away
from "being aware" or "self-soothing" (often
just another version of "it's up to me") and
simply toward
entering and receiving and being received.
I now awaken each morning, pour a cup of tea,
light a candle, and sit on my couch in Silence.
Words, briefly. Then Silence.
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Mother Teresa, when asked by an interviewer

what she says to God when she prays
answered: "I don't say anything. I just listen."
When the interviewer asked what she hears
God say, Mother Teresa replied: "God doesn't
say anything. God just listens. And if you can't
understand that I can't explain it to you."
Im coming to trust this Presence we're each

hardwired to know. My lens of learned
absence ("forever empty") no longer runs my
day. I have another option. This universe is
different and kinder and more generous than
my procedurally imbedded worldview would
have ever believed.
Moments of meeting. Moments of shared

tenderness. Nothing special. Absolutely
essential.
Too good to be true? Or too true, simple, and

hidden-in-plain-sight to fit my previously
limited understanding of good?
... entering the Love that is more than our

own.
In every moment, I am either agreeing with

my procedural history or breathing within
communion. So it is for many of us.
Standing outside a door, we believe we must
find the key or, even worse, we are certain that
no key exists.
The door was never locked.
Opening happens ... with this tender breath.
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Not only is the hidden heart of our universe

deeply tender, it is surprisingly personal.
Absence.
Presence.
Presence in absence.
Its what we all want, in the end,

to be held, merely to be held,
to be kissed (not necessarily with the
lips,
for every touching is a kind of kiss).
Yes, its what we all want, in the end,
not to be worshiped, not to be
admired,
not to be famous, not to be feared
... but simply to be held.
www.Flickr.com
www.Flickr.com
This need.
This breath.
This Presence.
Alden Nowlan
Only This.
87
POSTSCRIPT: BUILDING A
DAILY PRESENCE PRACTICE
I want to honor your commitment to an eightyseven-minute experience and nothing
more. That time has likely come and gone.
This means that eightysevenminutes.com ends
here.
I have an aversion to sites that assume further
contact is something were interested in.
Hence, I want a clear demarcation between
what I've presented in these chapters and
another option that is available, but only to
those who make the intentional choice to
access it.
88
HIDDENHOLDING.COM
You have the choice to explore my interactive
website, hiddenholding.com, should you be
interested in:
Here is a brief sample of what you will find:

I no longer believe that what we're lacking is
additional information, more learning, better
thinking. While sometimes helpful, our
tendency to seek more is often an attempt to
side-step our deeper experience of absence.
Options for building a daily practice

(brief video instruction, readings, etc.).
Periodic updates to the writing presented
on this site, shared comments from
readers, etc.
Said simply: I'd gladly trade 1,000 books and

11,000 new ideas for a Daily Presence Practice
(10-30 minutes), one that continually deepens
my roots within hidden holding. Truth be told,
I'd trade nine remarkable ideas for a single,
tender breath (8 seconds).
As was true with this site, the experience is

gratis. Another small donation to someone in
need would be fine, but not expected.
Thank you for being here now, whatever
choice you make.
So, how might this look?
89
The above image depicts our two-dimensional

world, with the new option of
breathing from the grounding resource of
a hidden dimension (AND).
Breathing from this dimension into our Level
One strategies and Level Two negative
certainty is how transformation can happen.
Only this: tender breath ... tender breath
... tender breath.
The blue line in the images above represents

the breathing pattern shown in the last chapter,
a restful, tender inhale and easy, restful
exhale. (Approximately 4 counts on the inbreath and 4 counts on the out-breath;
breathing into the belly, rather than into the
chest. The emphasis is upon gentle breathing
rather than deep breathing.)
90
My original meditation teacher in the early

1970's, Allan Hunter, would say "Breathe and
wait." He was essentially saying, "Don't be
expecting something new or special when
you're meditating. Don't go looking for
profound experiences or new insights. Just be
faithful to your daily practice and pay close
attention through your day to the shifts and
changes in your life. Other than feeling
calmer, accessing what we deeply need will
likely not be a conscious experience during
our time of meditation. Rather, it will show up
in how our lives begin to transform: day by
week by month by year.
Gretchen Minx /eightysevenminutes.com
Trust roots that move in dark soil. Blind, but

not blindly.
91
SHARE EIGHTYSEVENMINUTES.
COM
This site was not designed to go viral. It was
written to go dual. One AND one.
While you've been reading, there may have
been several people who came to mind, people
you hunch might find this experience useful.
Connecting them to what is presented here is
my hope.
By the way, if you also want to share this on a
social media site, that's fine too. Who knows
where this note-in-a-bottle might end up?
All writing, unless otherwise attributed,

Kent Hoffman- 2015
kenthoffman1422@comcast.net
92

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Preface

Our negative certainty takes many forms:

Theres a lot under the surface of

Many of us know precisely what it is to be

Unyielding fear of failure or never being enough

Vigilance about others being too much

Worry about being left alone

The guarantee of never belonging

Guilt about the past

Dread of the future

The agony of a painful present

We exist on some primitive edge of life,

My education gave me everything I

The experience requires eighty-seven minutes

www.eightysevenminutes.com - All quotes are anonymous, written statements from seminar

This site was obviously created for those who

As stated above, you may want to turn back

You do not know what wars are

So. Psychotherapy, infant and early childhood

Some have said they want to pay for this

In an interview where he described our

... underneath everything in your

I was born in 1947, the year poet W.H. Auden

[Click image to watch]

To say that I worried as a child would be an

said it best: "I've lived through some terrible

After years of this gnawing fear and

Only years later did it begin to dawn on me

under the cultural delusion that knowledge

private despair matched by theirs. Though our

Along the way, some things changed.

Oddly, I felt a change beginning that would

Eventually, I found myself working as a

monk David Steindl-Rast at a hermitage on the

I began working at a small college and, based

But my personal life intervened. As a central

experience of enlightenment that often

Over the next few years I returned to "forever

Not surprisingly, within a few months my new

I felt increasingly stuck inside myself. I

How could anything change when

In coining the phrase, holding environment,

the child's absolute dependence and offers

Based upon the theory and research of her

Moments of meeting. Moments of trust.

Donald Winnicott, M.D.

within the nature of life, began to emerge into

As I deepened in my study (and corresponding

Every life is worthy of a novel.

For the first time, the internal chaos of my life

By this time, I had been dealing with the

While delving into developmental psychology

Then, unexpectedly, I was offered an

You have another choice Kent. You can quit

while this terminology is now more common

Your great mistake is to act the

I practiced holding and being-with my pain for

I was now married and the father of a young

1. Homeless/street dependent teen parents

Life was beginning to shift.