A small and important thing I need to say today.
You do not have to take on the sadness of the world.
Oh, dear heart.
You do not have to take on the sadness of the world.
You just don’t.
You don’t need to carry it. You don’t need to hold it.
That’s not your job, sweetie.
Endnotes.
- All sadness and pain are legitimate, of course. We feel what we feel, and we are allowed to feel it.
- Not holding onto the pain of people or places does not mean you have to give it back to them or that they will now have more of it. That is a distortion.
- You can give the world’s sadness to the fountain. Or into the pot. Or to give it to the pool or the trees. Or to the magical elevator shaft that lives at the Hidden Playground.
- This is not the same as “leave your baggage at the door.” Not at all. You are always allowed to have your baggage. We learn about it and play with it and discover what is true about it and what is also true. This is about releasing pain that does not belong to you.
- It means undoing instead of absorbing. It means staying in your space so you can bring strength and love to every encounter, including encounters with pain that is not yours.
- Sometimes sadness that is not yours will remind you of the sadness that is yours. It is true that we all have sadness. However, these are not the same. Separate out. Don’t agree to let sadness amplify sadness. You can meet the sadness that is yours and still release the sadness that is theirs.
- Sometimes memories of sadness from then make the sadness from now feel louder or more all-encompassing. Now Is Not Then.
- Safe rooms can help. Or making tiny homes for the parts of you currently experiencing amplified sadness. Another way of coming back to truth.
- This piece of radiant truth, like so many, is brought to you by self-fluency, being a clear conduit for knowing all the deep internal knowings. If that sounds thrilling, yes. If that sounds terrifying, I’m right there with you. Having superpowers is both harder and easier than it sounds.
- These are hard times. We make room for the experiences that come up in hard times.
- LOVE.
Responding. The blanket fort of response.
I am currently receiving: heart-sighs, smiles.
You can plant a tree for the sadness or for someone else who is in sadness. You can spark sparks. You can light a stick of imaginary incense that smells exactly the way you like and let it burn away the sadness that is not yours. Or to burn away the old habit-pattern of needing to absorb what is not yours.
You can silent retreat or leave tiny little pebbles.
You can pour tears into the fountain. That is what it is there for. Or if your sadness is Colorado’s sadness, you could give it to the mountains. They know what to do.
Or they might. I am imagining that they do.
Above all else, this is a place of safety and love. Non-dogmatic autonomous play-filled safety and love.
Follow
lighting a little candle of love for and non-sadnes with the world. its soft pink, and it stands with a hot pink and a white candle, you know, for companionship.
*shuffles up to fountain*
*heaves backpack up to rim*
*unzips pack*
*watches cascade of sadness dust-grains spilling into the water*
Oh, Havi. I have been struggling with this so much. Thank you for all the very important reminders of what one can do when the world is hard in this particular way.
Heart-sighs.
Thank you.
-o-
Imaginary incense — that is lovely, and exactly what I feel like using today. Here I stand, watching the imaginary smoke float upwards and disappear. Thank you.
Beautiful. Thank you for this.
I am pouring sadness into the fountain, and basking in the beauty. So much beauty here, and in the world, and in all of us.
Thank you, Havi. Truly needed this today, and now, every day.
*heart-sigh* ooo
-o-
Beautiful Havi, thank you.
Much needed, much love and many thanks
Reminded me of how happy I am, thank you!
Thanks for the reminder,been hiding from the news all week.Now watching the sadness that is not mine being absorbed by those ageless mountains and reminding myself, Then is Not Now, and this is not my sadness.
Oh, sigh. Yes.
You are right about the mountains.
You are so beautiful Havi.
Thank you, Havi. You always know exactly what needs to be said.
I’m releasing little scraps of paper to the wind – blue ones with sadness on them, and green ones with hope.
Thank you for the reminder that I can feel the sadness without being the sadness.
I am giving the intangible heart-sadness and fear to the mountains. The ones in East TN, because I know they know what to do with it. I am hoping some of it gets transformed into flowers in my mom’s front yard.
I’m lighting candles. They can burn away the sadness that is not mine and leave behind that soothing scent that I love.
The most profound practice I do as a Buddhist is called Tonglen. I learned it over 20 years ago, not long after my brain injury when my life and whole world shattered and I thought I was about to be homeless.
The practice involves breathing in all the pain and suffering of others and sending out light.
Perhaps the most amazing thing Ive discovered, by doing this practice i don’t keep carrying pain. Not mine. Not anyone else’s. It’s like being washed clean and wrapped in luminous blankets.
I become the fountain.
If its any comfort, send your sadness. Know that love is on its way.
Just what I needed on a day at the end of a week that’s been particularly rough with tripping on things. (I went to the tripping post as well – that and this together.) *sigh*
Thank you.
I remembered this yesterday, and remembered tonglen, and then you wrote it down for me and everyone to remember.
Heart signs and putting the sadness into the fountain.
OMG, I am glad I only discovered this post today because the 24th was my peak-sadness-total-meltdown-day and I think reading this post would have produced even more tears even though (or simply because) it is so totally spot on.
I will print it so that in can console me through the bouts of sadness and remind me to let the tears go straight into the fountain.
Thank you, Havi.
heart sigh; thank you for this.
oh Havi. Thank you so much for this beautiful post. Images of tears, incense, and the mountains of Santa Fe, NM flashed in my head as I read it. *Heart sigh*
Oh, Havi. This was exactly. Exactly. What I needed right now. I’m sitting here at the free wi-fi library crying, good tears. Releasing.
thank you for this precious reminder. it’s one of the reasons I come here.
-o-