There are places within us that do not long simply to be released, expressed, or discharged. They long to be met. The lost orphans of psyche and soma may not be asking us to intensify what we feel, or to find some dramatic way of getting it out. They may be asking for something more subtle.

To stay. To feel what is here without collapsing into it. To remain close without needing to fix it, transcend it, or make it go away.

Because what we are meeting is not only emotion. We are meeting history—the traces of moments when there was not enough support, enough safety, enough attunement. These places do not need to be performed. They need relationship. They need to discover, slowly and over time, that they no longer have to carry what happened alone.

This is the quieter work of integration. Where there was compulsion, a little more space. Where there was reactivity, a little more choice. Where there was exile, the possibility of relationship.

~Matt Licata

it’s not the only way…

inquiry for today~ what lingers in your questions?

these telling ways….

There are moments

that cry out to be filled.

Like telling someone you love them.

Or giving your money away, all of it.

Your heart is beating, isn’t it?

You’re not in chains, are you?

There is nothing more pathetic

than caution

when headlong might save a life,

even, possibly, your own.

~Mary Oliver