The guest house

Happiness is emphasized as a cornerstone of mental health.

What if I told you it is not my goal to make you happy? And in fact, I believe the emphasis on being happy in all states and places is just as problematic as the character assassination that accompanies depression and anxiety. Denial of negative emotions or hyperfixation on positive emotions is the same injury of not being in tune with our body and our environment.

My goal is to help you create, repair or maintain a system that allows you to interpret stimulus and process emotion through feeling it in your body and validating it cognitively. Regardless of whether it is disgusting, horrifying, sad or otherwise. It all has value, it all has purpose.

I’m not against you being happy. It’s just not the point of a healthy, sustainable system to process our experiences in life and relationships. There is pain. I don’t really want there to be as much pain as there is, but so far that doesn’t matter.

The guest house by Rumi is a poem I love to reference in sessions, because it highlights this idea of creating a house that has space for any guest that comes:

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!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond. ~ Rumi

May we learn to create a space to hold all of our sacred emotions and experiences and call that healing.