At times, the kindest thing we can offer a friend in pain is to sit in the darkness with them, removing the burden that they change, feel better, or 'heal' in order for us to stay close. It may feel like urgent action is being called for and that we must shift their depression to joy, their sadness to bliss, or their hopelessness to hope. But in doing so, we disavow the jewels that are hidden in the dark soil of the body.
Together, let us make a commitment to no longer pathologize the wrathful appearance of sadness, anxiety, grief, and confusion. Instead, we will validate the right of these very vivid energies to surge in the body, staying close with them and listening carefully to what they have to say. We will no longer remove our love, our attunement, and our presence simply because another's experience is not conforming to our personal and collective fantasies of happiness and light.
Whatever arises, we are committed to no longer meeting it with violence, with aggression, with shame, and with blame, for ours is a path of radical self-kindness, fierce compassion, and slowing way down.
As we provide sanctuary for our own unmetabolized sadness, hopelessness, and disappointment, we remove the burden of the unlived life from the world around us.
For it is within the willingness to provide safe passage for the darkness within that we will truly be able to love another.