By Matt Licata
At times, the kindest thing we can offer a friend in pain is to sit in the darkness with them, removing the burden that they change, feel better, or heal in order for us to stay close. It may feel like urgent action is being called for and that we must shift their depression to joy, their sadness to bliss, or their hopelessness to hope. But in doing so, we disavow the jewels that are hidden in the dark soil of the body.
Let us love the other so much that we refuse to pathologize their experience, doing what we can to help them see that they are not broken, that no mistake has been made, and that they are not a problem which must be corrected by psychological or spiritual process. Let them know in their hearts that we will not remove our love, our affection, our attunement, and our presence simply because their experience is not conforming to our personal and collective fantasies of happiness and light.
As we weave a home for our own unmet sadness, disappointment, and despair, we withdraw the projection of our unlived lives from the environment around us. For it is to the degree that we can provide safe passage for the unwanted within that we can truly love another.
While it is very natural to have a bias toward positive states of being – toward the peaceful, the joyous, and the clear – the beloved does not appear to share this bias. For she is ready at all times to equally invoke the magic of the dark *and* the light in order to unfold and illuminate the path of love inside you.
First posted on Matt’s blog: A healing space
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