At the Playground, where I work play, there is a very small treasure box.
Whenever you remember something that hurts, you drop a tiny stone from the bowl of tiny stones into the treasure box.
If it hurts a lot, you can drop more stones. All the stones! It’s okay.
Each stone makes a sound halfway between a tiny plop and a tiny thunk. A tiny plop-thunk. It is the best.
When the treasure box is full of stones, you empty the stones back into their bowl, and you begin again.
Here is what the box is good for.
Recognition.
Guess what? Things from then can still be painful, even if they are over.
They can still get to be painful.
Plop-thunk.
Legitimacy.
It is okay that this thing still hurts.
Or that I have uncovered a new hurt.
It’s okay that I am feeling whatever it is that I’m feeling, even if I’m not sure why this is coming up right now.
Actually, sometimes why isn’t even the right question.
This is what I’m feeling. Plop-thunk.
This is what is true for me in this moment. Legitimate.Plop-thunk.
There is nothing wrong with me for feeling this. Plop-thunk.
Comfort.
There is the having-something-to-do part, which is comforting. Plop-thunk.
The ritualized aspect, which is (for me) also comforting.
There is a symbolic but very physical repository for pain, which is comforting.
The stones are there for you whenever you need them, which is comforting.
And you are also comforting yourself through giving legitimacy to the feelings and marking the moment of being in them.
Interruptions.
Plop-thunk is the sound of patterns being interrupted.
Telling the story of a break-up, for example, is very different when you do it while sitting by the treasure box of stones.
You tell the story differently.
It’s almost like you get to tell the story without going into the story.
You have to be paying attention because you’re dropping stones as you talk. So it’s not the same old story. It’s a new one.
This version of the story comes with awareness and is accompanied by acknowledgment. Rewritten through the addition of sweet pauses. All the old patterns getting interrupted with love.
Because tiny stones are the most compassionate interruption there is. Plop-thunk-plop-thunk-plop-thunk..
Flow.
Sometimes this thing happens where we tell stories about old pain, and then the telling just serves to reinforce something. We go into wheel-grinding. Each retelling makes the narrative that much more rigid, deepening the pain-grooves and the perception of being wronged.
But! When you tell your story while dropping stones into a treasure box (plop-thunk!), everything begins to move again.
New insights reveal themselves. Something that used to be about disillusion can suddenly turn out to be about discovery. Or freedom.
Stories (like anything else) are made new when you get to interact with them in a new way. Yay, unexpected opportunities for movement. Plop-thunk.
Presence.
Oh. Hello, pain. This is me and this is my pain and this is my stuff and this is me reminding myself that I am noticing all of this.
And every time I notice, I’m stepping out of the pain-experience and into a new state: the loving-observer-of-me-going-through-the-pain-experience.
I am being with the pain and with the me-who-is-in-pain. But I am not the pain itself. This leads to the (advanced practice! super hard! but really great!) superpower of compassionate detachment. And to love and permission. To all the good things, really.
And I can do this even while I’m in the hard. Even when I’m not liking being in the hard. Just by dropping a stone into a box.
Each plop-thunk of stone-into-box is helping me be the tiniest bit more conscious. Plop-thunk. Plop-thunk..
Reminders.
I am here, now.
Now is not then.
I have different tools and different skills that weren’t available to me the last time I felt this way.
There are always more stones.
Commenting blanket fort. Come play, if you like.
Seriously. There are always more stones.
If you would like (plop-thunk!) to drop a stone or several stones or ALL THE STONES here, you are welcome to.
In a way, it’s a bit like bringing things to the fountain. Or throwing things into the pot. And it also works really well as a subset of silent retreat.
So if you would like to play, I would love to have company. Drop in stones with me. Or say plop-thunk with me. Or leave something that got sparked for you.
The usual reminders: We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process. We make this a safe and welcoming space by not putting our stuff onto other people. We take care of ourselves while not trying to take care of anyone else.
Follow
Plop-thunk.
I am finding these words very helpful for me right now:
“I am here, now.
Now is not then.
I have different tools and different skills that weren’t available to me the last time I felt this way.
There are always more stones.”
Thank you.
Plop-thunk.
Such a sweet and profound practice.
plop-thunk.
Plop-thunk.
Guilt. Woulda-shoulda-coulda.
Plop-thunk.
Anxiety. Whatiffery. Disaster scenarios. Monster hand-wringing.
Plop-thunk.
Support. Love. Moving forward.
Plop-thunk.
Calm. Even if it’s temporary, I am cherishing this moment of calm.
Plop-thunk.
Gratitude.
Plop-thunk. I want to make a box of stones for myself. This is wonderful.
It feels like it has containment too. The box holds the stones for me.
Plop-thunk.
plop-thunk…
I am still allowed to be heartbroken even when I’m the one who initiated the break-up.
Plop-thunk.
plop-thunk!
i am appreciating this today:
a simple thing: a box with stones.
and then: all the layers! so much writing, and circling.
Mmmmm
plop-thunk.
ker-plunk.
I have a bowl of stones I use to hold incense, and I just plop-thunked a handful of a stone a thought… it was so lovely to separate them out and get space. And I remembered a story of an old hurt that I’d forgotten, and it didn’t need to hurt anymore.
<3 plop-thunk!
and then I needed to wash my hands. perfect, because yay hand-washing.
What a beautiful metaphor. I’ll keep it in my heart until I can create a Treasure Box of my own.
As always, I’m sorry hard stuff is hard.
And here’s me, plop-thunking a pebble into the box.
plop-thunk!
yes, that.
plop-thunk!
“All the old patterns getting interrupted with love.” Ahhhh, yes. With live, with love.
And here we are.
Plop-thunk
plop-thunk!
A stone for overwhelm.
plop-thunk!
A stone for blaming. I hate blaming. I blame blaming!
plop-thunk!
A beautiful pebble, to help me remember all the beauty and magic in my world.
Plop-thunk
Plop-thunk
Plop-thunk
Plop-thunk
Stones can sound like raindrops.
I like that.
Wow.
I feel so relieved that there is a physical way to acknowledge my hurt. And into a treasure chest! Of course! The difficult times often become lessons for me.
Then — there are always more stones!!?? About six monsters are jostling to be the first to say: “kerplunk! How is that fair? If I work hard to transmute those awful stones to treasure, no way am I going to put them back in the bowl! Lemme see the rulebook, now.”
Honesty from a monster. That helped me figure out why they don’t let me do my Thing. They think I deserve a rest. They haven’t yet heard the epiphany of the day; my Thing IS my sanctuary (as cozy as an escape but more meaningful.)
Monster ideas are now in the treasure chest. Thank you, Havi!
This is great, thank you! It was just what I needed to read today and hear. I get pretty depressed around this time of year and a lot of old pain comes up for me – a lot and it seems intensified around the holidays. I suffer from depression as is, but since I started practicing Ashtanga yoga, I am noticing that there is a small part of me that is in “witness consciousness” where I am feeling how I feel but I am also aware of it and “being with it” as you put it. I think the great purpose of this “witness consciousness” in these state of feeling and being, is to go with the flow or formulate some kind of a healing response that then breeds ultimate transformation. I am patient with myself though I want things to just stop hurting. I want them gone from my narrative.
I really, really like this idea! It seems to fit well with recent neurological research about the act of remembering changing the memories.
Plop-thunk!
Plop-thunk. Plop-thunk. Plop-thunk.
I am allowed to keep my story to myself. I am allowed to ask for privacy. I am allowed to still feel hurt.
Plop-thunk.
Such a beautiful post. I want to rush out and find a Treasure Box and a bowl and tiny stones of my very own right now!
All the stones. For all the hurts …
Plop-thunk.
@ Viva, thank you for this – ‘my thing IS my sanctuary’ – because it is so very easy to forget it, sometimes.
I love this!
And again, you and me with the parallel stuff. My thanksgiving post last week had a pebble ritual: a Self-Kindness spell.
Stones Rock!
(just one guy…)
http://www.mamascomfortcamp.com/thanksgiving-spell/
Fer sure! Many ploppings and thunkings over here.
Also having fun keeping my eyes open for a better treasure box.
Plop-thunk
Now is not then
Plop-thunk
what happened after does not invalidate everything that went before
Plop-thunk
old pain aches deep
Plop-thunk
Ah, monsters, doing what monsters do, are now arguing about if it is OK to want ‘special’ stones. They think I don’t deserve them.
Plop-thunk
plop-thunk, plop-thunk, ploppity-thunk, ploppity-plop thunkity, ploppity-plop, thunkity-thunk, plop, plop, plop, plop, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk ~
thanks! I needed that!
haven’t been here in a long while, other than as one of the lurker/mice.
pain and the sharing brings me here, both the spiritual and the physical – dislocated shoulder with nerve damage which doc says may or may not go away ~
plop-thunk, plop-thunk, plop-thunk . . . . .
Oh Boy Oh Boy! I am setting this up right now. Playing with this.
Dropping ALL THE STONES.
All the stones.
Hello old pain. It’s okay that you’re here.
“All the old patterns getting interrupted with love.”
Amen to that.