The idea of taking the leap comes from a book that   Pema Chodron wrote which is relevant to step 7 and living with humility.  The titles of the chapters are captivating in how they relate to living with a certain peace and serenity and what it takes to commit to that.  It talks about feeding the right wolf and that we all have different sides that involve ego or natural open-heartedness.  We have  the choice about what we feed

To honestly face the pain in our lives and the problems in the world to look at the self honestly and compassionately.  Or we can become intimate with the mind of hatred, ego, polarisation, WE can make the choice to nurture humility, openness, intelligence and warmth.  This choice and the attitudes and actions that follow from it are like a medicine that has the potential to heal suffering.

In Buddhist teaching its encouraged to work with the wildness of the mind as the best way to dissolve confusion and pain.  This allows acceptance and the space to see the very mechanics of how we keep in emotions that can keep us stuck.  That repetitive suffering does not always come from uncomfortable sensations but from our mind going into the “what’s happening next”.  We can choose to treat ourselves with compassion and humility and believe that we have what we need right now.

The Dalai Lama has often said that having compassion for oneself is the basis for developing compassion for others.  It can be said that we all have access to “unlimited friendliness”.  We can all work from the heart and want to be genuine in our trust and communications.  This is relevant to the peace that we are looking for and its not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficultly and chaos.  This is because we have committed to humility as a way of life.  If we do this we have more chance of living life on life’s terms.  This builds emotional resilience and strength into our emotional process which transfers and touches others.