One of the overarching themes of my Hidden Lines trilogy is awareness beyond the self. Chloe has a lot thrown at her, and she uses various meditation techniques learned from the hero, Jorge, and his family, as well as her own self-study, to continually become more in tune with who she really is at her core. This work brings an openness to the world and to others that allows her to heal the hurts of her past.

Today, I read a transcript of a teaching by Pema Chodron. You can read the whole transcript here, but this is a quote from it that made me think about Chloe.

“When you are completely wound up about something and you pause, your natural intelligence clicks in and you have a sense of the right thing to do. This is part of the magic: our own natural intelligence is always there to…