Being Human Is A Guest House. And Some Of Our Guests Suck.
How Rumi Taught Me An Important Truth.
“The Guest House” by Rumi is one of my favorite poems of all time.
When I was a high school teacher, I often opened class by having a student read it.
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.”
It’s not easy to welcome and entertain all of your joys and all of your depressions. It can be satisfying but painful to welcome and entertain your meannesses.
But emotions do not stay forever. They visit. We feed them. They leave.
We do not always get to choose our visitors. We do not always get to choose how we feel about our visitors. Our meta-emotions tend to just make things worse. Becoming aware of our status as a guest house can help.
You can feel ugly things and think ugly thoughts without being an ugly person. You can feel the most unpleasant of things — sorrow, anger, shame, guilt, humiliation — and not be an unpleasant person. You can welcome those thoughts and feelings in, let them stay the night, and bid them farewell in the morning.
“Even if they’re a crowd…