The Guest House

 .

Rumi once said;

"This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond"

Who are these guests?

Being human is nothing but it is like a guest house to a new guest.

These guests are our emotions and unexpected moments of realisation of how feelings take turns.

And each one serves a purpose.

No wonder Rumi was a superstar.

Feelings are guests in the name of joy, happiness, sadness, grief, loss, depression, shame, malice, and so on which are not permanent, they come, do their part and go.

The way I understand this is that every emotion is simply a guest. No emotion is ever permanent.

Why then?

Why do we hold on to grief or loss or pain?

Why do we hate pain or loss or sorrow, to the extent where we disagree to even feel them?

Pain is so much excruciating, and happiness is less delightful because we try to escape from these feelings.

Suffering is inevitable.

To hurt is to be human, and apparently, it is inevitable too.

Predominantly, to move away from the pain is our natural, reflexive reaction.

But, will escaping serve us in any way?

Will it help to pause the anguish inside us?

Instead, it's the other way around. It only brings us more anguish and agony in the long run.

The response that will serve us best is to FEEL.

My favourite, John Green wisely put it, Pain demands to be felt.

Not only pain, but every emotion demands to be felt.

It is frightening to connect with the pain that life brings, especially when all we did was to avoid it the entire time.

It becomes overpowering and unusual.

We need to model for us the way to approach that pain with mindfulness and compassion and realise how healing this experience feels.

This will help us in understanding that sinking into the feeling does not mean that the emotion controls you, but rather it is simply the space we give to that emotion to move through us.

The more we can enfold the pain in our lives, the more deeply we will feel those things that we desire.

Because these emotions are not counterparts, but two sides of the same coin.

Period.

~Man says