Keeping quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about...
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

by Pablo Neruda

Yes, we can talk

Having loved enough and lost enough,
I’m no longer searching
just opening,

no longer trying to make sense of pain
but trying to be a soft and sturdy home
in which real things can land.

These are the irritations
that rub into a pearl.

So we can talk for a while
but then we must listen,
the way rocks listen to the sea.

And we can churn at all that goes wrong
but then we must lay all distractions
down and water every living seed.

And yes, on nights like tonight
I too feel alone. But seldom do I
face it squarely enough
to see that it’s a door
into the endless breath
that has no breather,
into the surf that human
shells call God.

by Mark Nepo

Stop trying to fix me. Love me instead.

"Please, don't try to fix me. I am not broken. I have not asked for your solutions.

When you try to fix me, you unintentionally activate deep feelings of unworthiness, shame, failure, even suicidal self-doubt within me. I can't help it. I feel like I have to change to please you, transform myself just to take away your anxiety, mend myself to end your resistance to the way I am. And I know I can't do that, not on your urgent timeline anyway. You put me in an impossible bind. I feel so powerless.

I know your intentions are loving! I know you really want to help. You want to serve. You want to take away people's pain when you see it. You want to uplift, awaken, caretake, educate, inspire. You truly believe that you are a positive, compassionate, unselfish, nice, good, kind, pure, spiritual person.

But I want you to know, honestly, friend, I feel like a steaming pile of sh*t when you try to 'love' me in this old way. It doesn't feel loving to me at all. Quite the opposite. It feels like you're trying to relieve your own tension by controlling me. Under the guise of you being 'kind' and 'helpful' and 'spiritual', I feel suffocated, smothered, rejected, shamed, and completely unloved. I feel abandoned in your love! Do you get that? I feel like you don't actually care about ME, even though on the surface it sure looks like you care!

But deep down it feels like you are holding an image of how I should be. Your image. Not mine!

It looks like your love but it feels like your violence. Do you understand?

Yet as soon as you stop trying to 'help' me, you are of the greatest help to me! I stop trying to change to please you! I feel safe, respected, seen, honored for what I am. I can fall back into my own power. I can trust myself again, the way you are trusting me. I can relax deeply.

Without your pressure, your demand for me to abandon myself and be different, healed, transformed, enlightened, awakened, mended, 'better', I can better see myself. I can discover my own inner resources. I can touch my own powerful presence. I feel safe enough to allow and express my true feelings, thoughts, desires, hold my own perceptions. I no longer feel smothered, a victim, a little child to your expert adult. The courageous adult in me rises. I breathe more deeply. I feel my feet on the ground. Loving attention drenches my experience, even the uncomfortable parts. My senses feel less dull. Healing energies emerge from deep within. I feel light, free, liberated from your fear.

I feel respected, not shamed. Seen, not compared to an image.

You help me so much when you stop trying to help me, friend! I need my own answers, my own truth, not yours. I want a friend, present and real, not an expert or a savior.

And do you see, when you are trying to save me, you are actually abandoning yourself? You are running from your own discomfort, your own unlived potential, and focusing on mine? I become your ultimate distraction. I don't want to be that for you anymore.

Let's break this cycle together! Let's stop trying to fix or save each other. Let's love each other instead. Bow to each other. Bless each other. Hold each other. As we are. As we actually, actually, actually are."

by Jeff Foster