Author and translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher shares how contemplation disrupts unhelpful stories that run through her mind:
One of the things that contemplation does for me is what Meister Eckhart calls Gelassenheit. [2] [It allows me] to let go of my own stories. We all have these stories going through our minds … these different aspects of ourselves that are always having an inner conversation. When I practice contemplation, whether it’s walking down the street … or just returning to love, somehow, I’m letting go of my stories for the moment. There comes a quiet where I can hear again what Beatrice Bruteau calls that “radical optimism.” [3] What I love about contemplation is that it’s kind of like that record scratch … where everything stops and you go, wait, what am I doing? Who am I? Why am I just participating in this blather inside … when I could sink into this real love that is who I am and who everyone is?