https://pixabay.com/users/Mysticsartdesign-322497/
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“The ultimate goal—though this is no easy thing and takes time to develop—is to allow everything to come up, with all its energy:
all of, for instance, your anger and loneliness and despair, to allow these things to arise and be transformed by the light of awareness.
There is tremendous energy in these states, and much of the time we suppress them, so that we not only lose all the energy that is in them but also expend a great deal keeping them down.
What we gradually learn is to let these things come up and be transformed, to release their energy.
You don’t solve your problems in this practice, it is sometimes said, you dissolve them.
But the wild mind that we all confront when we start discourages many practitioners.
Buddhist tradition calls it monkey mind, like a drunken monkey swinging through the jungle endlessly looking for bigger and better bananas.
Sometimes it seems like a frantic cage full of monkeys.”
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PTSD - A Way Out.com 
Posted by rudid96 on April 12, 2020 at 3:23 pm
Really appreciate this one. I’ve been working on the simple act of breathing when things come up. Yes, when the thoughts come, my mind is truly a cage of wild monkeys. Good to breath and turn my attention elsewhere.
Posted by Marty on April 12, 2020 at 3:45 pm
We build our focus to be able to stay present while our fight or flight fires.
Boredom becomes much easier when we handle our fear calmly, one slow breath at a time
We do not change anything, try to influence anything we just use the focus we have built.
Our breath controls our nervous system
Most everything else pails In The face of perceived danger
Posted by addinggrace on April 15, 2020 at 3:09 am
I love the picture of a “frenetic monkey cage” that totally encapsulates how I often feel when dealing with memories of the past.
Posted by Marty on April 15, 2020 at 3:40 am
Inside our head thoughts become minsters
Posted by Marty on April 15, 2020 at 2:07 pm
Having the ability to let go and come back to now, saves us lots of suffering