Keeping the doors open

Reminders in times of heartache

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A song I’m loving:

a golden burst, 35mm film

Is there room to say my heart feels so wildly raw that lately, it’s like there’s a thin piece of gauze in between me and beauty? Not the kind that blocks it out completely, but the kind that makes it all just a little hazy, a little harder to fully let it in, a little more effortful to keep my eyes wide open enough to see it.

At first, I thought this was a personal problem. Is depression seeping back in? Am I not moving my body enough, am I not eating enough protein, am I not breathing deeply enough to let the goodness past the haze? Do I need more sleep? Less screen time? Should I get back to morning pages? I run down the checklist. What am I doing wrong? That question so quickly leads to what’s wrong with me?, doesn’t it?

Sure, there is always more I could be optimizing and doing to make it all a little easier. And yet when I look around at the world, and at the way we are being with one another amid difference, I remember: it isn’t a personal problem to have a raw heart right now; it’s a natural response to living within a raw, painful time. It’s a natural response to opening the news and seeing yet another bill signed aimed at dehumanizing for the sake of power. It’s a natural response to witnessing children starving, and the outrage directed at those of us who have had the clarity and courage to say it’s wrong. It’s a natural response to the sheer amount we’re all being asked to process, metabolize, understand, hold. It isn’t my unique personal problem whatsoever; my heart is so wise for being tenderized by it all. Thank goodness the door on so many of our hearts are open, even now, maybe especially now.

peering through, 35mm film

Within this raw and tenderized heart place, I’m finding myself needing to remember the truth constantly. It’s too simple to get tricked, confused, thrown off kilter. It’s too easy to make the world’s chaos my personal flaw in need of fixing. We’ve been so conditioned to individualize every part of ourselves, to the point of assuming it can all be fixed within. When I listen to the wisdom of my own heart, to all it knows even before my mind does sometimes, there are other reminders I am turning toward and holding in my palm, like soothing stones. Here are some I’m been circling around as I tend to what I’ve been feeling and holding:

— Don’t make an understandable response of grief a personal failure in need of fixing. Don’t make understandable rage a personal flaw in need of brightening. Don’t make understandable confusion a personal problem in need of solving. Your heart is wise. Your heart is wise. Your heart is wise.

— Some things need time. Your grief isn’t an emergency; it might just need some of your time. When you slow down enough to be with what’s really there in your heart, you give it the room it needs to expand and then, inevitably, contract again.

— You do not need to fix your heartache. That is not what’s being asked when it yelps for your attention. Instead, perhaps you need to cradle it, rock it back and forth, hold it like it’s helpless and you are the help. Notice what happens when you cradle your hurt instead of shooing it away. Notice how it softens in your own arms.

finding the way, 35mm film

— Your heartache isn’t a sign of immaturity or lack of resourcing. It isn’t a signal you aren’t taking good enough care of yourself or trying hard enough. Your heartache is a signal of your willingness to feel. It’s a symbol of your awakeness, your aliveness. It’s a map back toward what matters most. Let your heartache teach you something before you try to rid yourself of it.

— It is so much easier to look away, to say nothing, to go about business as usual, to remain neutral, to stay “good” in the eyes of those who look to you. Yet when your heart calls you to speak, to witness, to tell the truth, it’s wise to listen. You can withstand the misunderstanding, the judgment, the cruelty you’ll receive by speaking; you might not withstand the shrinking of yourself for the sake of fake acceptance.

— Beauty might just feel a little dull at times. It doesn’t need to be an emergency; perhaps it’s a sign your grief needs some care, or your anger needs a release valve, or your hurt needs a soothing balm. You can turn toward the ache when it calls for your attention; beauty will be there when you need it. Beauty isn’t going anywhere.

— When you look at the hurt of the world and your heart hurts in response, it is a reminder of the way you are inherently tethered to everyone else. It is a reminder of the way you belong alongside everyone else. It is a reminder you are part of a collective of other hearts also beating, also breathing. Let your hurting heart remind you of this before you try to soothe or fix it away. You are part of this hurting, astonishing world. Your heart knows it to be true.

a sweet resting place, 35mm film

— One breath. Then another. Then another.

— Remember what actually helps: being of service. Hugs from your family. Long talks with friends. Crying and letting the water of you flow. Caring for self as an act of staying present to it all, not as an act of numbing it all out. Laughing hysterically, because that, too, is real, even now. Watching the flowers bloom in the garden. Watching the house finches eating from the bird feeder. Walks. Poetry. Community. Morning drives to Point Reyes. Letting it all be.

There is so much to tend to, hold, be with, feel. May you find so much gentleness for your own process. May you let your humanity unfurl, over and over again. May the grief and hurt wrapped up in facing the world be held by your own willingness to look. May love soften the hard edges. May light soothe the dark places. May you return to your own heart’s knowing and trust what it whispers to you. May you let yourself do all of this so imperfectly, that imperfection a reminder that you are a human being, figuring it all out for the first time. I’m with you.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Best thing I’ve read lately (The New Yorker)

△ Gratitude for local flower essences

△ A somatic practice for trans allyship and protection

△ Ocean Vuong and Jia Tolentino in conversation

△ Dharma talks from Natalie Goldberg

△ Bringing this balm of a book everywhere I go

△ Other People’s Problems

△ The moral clarity of one of my daughter’s favorites

△ Final classes of the CIIS Psychedelic Therapies and Research certificate program this past weekend, which really feels like a beginning —

the endless gift of plants

With care,
Lisa