Your Wild Mind - The East and Our Need to Escape

<p>Welcome back to our 4-part series on the Wild Mind! If you missed any of the 2 previous episodes, be sure to check them out!</p><p> </p><p>This week is about the East facet of the mind, and while we’ll also dive into how we tend to buffer and escape from reality when this facet is coming from a wounded place, let’s start with the qualities of the East when we are more balanced in it.</p><p> </p><p>The East contains elements of the Innocent <strong>and</strong> the Sage; our capacity to be simultaneously innocent and wise, plus the archetypes of the Sacred Fool and the Trickster, too.</p><p> </p><p>Think of the 14th Dalai Lama or Archbishop Desmond Tutu - wise, yet also playful with such an innocent sense of humor; how it seems relatively easy for them to belt out a full belly laugh. How Pema CHodron can be so insightful and deliver deep wisdom, yet als have an audience cracking up.</p><p> </p><p>This may seem paradoxical - and therefore hard to grasp and be comfortable with - but when we sit long enough with it, we discover that innocence and deep wisdom actually have a lot in common: purity, virtue, and an innocent sense of integrity.</p><p> </p><p>The East is where the Sun rises after a long night. It’s often associated with beginnings, birth, transcendence, light, enlightenment.</p><p> </p><p>We know we’re in the East if we see our capacity to laugh at how ridiculous we can be, and <i>also</i> laugh at how way too <i>serious</i> we can be, like that time we lost our shit when something didn’t arrive in the mail on time, or when we made detailed travel plans and <i>none</i> of them worked out and we got so worked up about it…when we’re supposed to be relaxing on vacation.</p><p> </p><p>The East is also. - like the sunrise - when we feel that a dark veil has lifted over a part of our life and we suddenly have a level of clarity and we wonder, “WTF….how did I <i>miss</i> that?”</p><p> </p><p>This facet is active when you’re spontaneous and playful, or when you sense the vibe getting heavy and you offer <i>just