Get When Things Fall Apart

Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, When Things Fall Apart offers a counterintuitive approach to suffering: instead of running from pain, move toward it with friendliness and curiosity — and discover that groundlessness itself can become the foundation for an awakened life.

Core Principles

Embrace Groundlessness

We spend enormous energy trying to find solid ground — security, certainty, permanence — but life is fundamentally groundless. Rather than fighting this truth, Pema teaches us to relax into uncertainty. Getting the knack of staying present with shakiness, a broken heart, or hopelessness without panicking is the path of true awakening.

Move Toward Pain

Our instinct is to flee from painful situations, but nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. When we protect ourselves from pain, that protection becomes armor that imprisons the softness of the heart. The approach that brings lasting benefit involves becoming intimate with difficulty rather than avoiding it.

Practice Maitri (Loving-Kindness)

Before we can extend compassion to others, we must develop maitri — unconditional friendliness toward ourselves. This means having the courage and honesty to look at ourselves without aggression, accepting our fears, confusion, and imperfection as part of being human rather than evidence of failure.

This Moment Is the Teacher

We don’t need to wait for extraordinary circumstances to practice awakening. This very moment — with all its messiness, ordinariness, and discomfort — is the perfect teacher. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available right now in our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.

Try It Now

1. Notice something uncomfortable you’re feeling right now — anxiety, restlessness, sadness, or physical tension.
2. Instead of trying to fix it or push it away, stay with the sensation for one minute. Breathe and observe it with curiosity.
3. Silently say to yourself: “This is what fear feels like” (or sadness, or uncertainty). Name it without judgment.
4. Ask yourself: “What is this feeling trying to teach me?” Don’t force an answer — just let the question sit.
5. End offering yourself the same compassion you would give a good friend in pain.

Quote

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. We run away from it, but the same problem just waits for us wearing new names and new faces.”